From left: Chris Price, assistant commissioner operations and programmes, Canadian Correctional Service; Carmeta Lindo, president, Family Unification and Resettlement Initiative Jamaica Limited, and CEO Reuben Phillips, at the third anniversary function of the organisation held at the Women's Centre Jamaica Foundation, Trafalgar Road, recently. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

DEPORTATION, LIKE migration, has, over time, become a paramount theme in human history.

Last year, as 23,580 persons were taking up permanent residence in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada, a total of 3,234 Jamaicans were being deported.

While 9,331 persons were legally employed in the hotel sector, factories and on farms in Canada, the Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica, 2008, reports that 45.6 per cent of Jamaicans have been deported from the United States.

These returnees/deportees were said to have overstayed their permits, entered or re-entered the country illegally, committed drug infringements and other criminal activities.

Some might have included persons who had left home from the tender age of two or even younger to be reunited with family, and to better their socio-economic status.

But in their efforts, they erred, paid the required penalty, and, nevertheless, were returned to a society where the culture is somewhat different from their adopted home.

broken-spirited

Sadly, some persons have left behind families and have arrived here with not much money in their pockets, jobless, broken-spirited and homeless.

It is in light of this that the Family Unification and Resettle-ment Initiative (FURI) Jamaica has been set up to help returnees with the resettlement and reintegration process in the society.

"All persons need is a second chance," Reuben Phillips, chief executive officer at FURI, told The Sunday Gleaner.

He said the organisation had been instrumental in assisting Caribbean nationals to return to their homelands and, where possible, reunite with family.

Phillips said that the non-profit organisation had been able to make an impact on Jamaica and the wider world despite limited resources and numerous challenges.

"We (FURI) have been assisting many deportees by providing alcohol and drugs counselling, helping with resettlement, skills training, and so on," Phillips said.

The organisation also operates a farm on 100 acres of land in St Thomas which serves as skills training and as a form of thera-peutic treatment for some of the returnees and volunteers at FURI.

It is also a means of providing revenues for the company, which opened on December 4, 2006.

Phillips cited other government, non-governmental and charity organisations that had come on board to help with the cause of FURI.

Byron Gilzene, a benefactor of the services of FURI Jamaica, said if it were not for the organisation, he would still be homeless.

Gilzene said: "I returned from the United States in 2001 and had been having a lot of problems. I lost my house and I was living on the streets."

He said years after being involved in criminal activities and doing time at the Spanish Town correctional institution, a friend told him about FURI.

Gilzene stated, "I said to myself, 'I could do something for FURI so that they could in return do some-thing for me'."

solitude

Sharing that he was a recovering drug addict who volunteered on the farm, Gilzene said that decision, made in 2008, was the best had ever made.

He stated, "It (the farm environ-ment) has given me that solitude to develop a positive mindset."

Phillips, while disclosing that the organisation has been able to stay in contact with 500 returnees, said there are plans to expand the organisation to Montego Bay and rural areas in the near future.

He said, "Even though the road might be rough both physically and financially, our efforts cannot be relented until we have done what we are called on to do."

He encouraged individuals to open their doors to returnees and to offer them a second chance.