Puerto Ricanstruction: Post-Maria Mental Health Catastrophe in Puerto Rico

PUERTO RICO ONE YEAR AFTER MARIA PHOTO ESSAY
In this Sept. 8, 2018 photo, Ramon Alicea Burgos walks past his palm tree, with its top broken off one year ago by Hurricane Maria one outside his partially rebuilt home in the mountain town of Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. Burgos, 82, partially repaired his home with $14,000 in aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and $6,000 he had saved since his wife died four years ago, but says the funds are insufficient after a spike building material costs. Ramon Espinosa / AP Photo
PUERTO RICO ONE YEAR AFTER MARIA PHOTO ESSAY
In this Sept. 8, 2018 photo, Ramon Alicea Burgos walks past his palm tree, with its top broken off one year ago by Hurricane Maria one outside his partially rebuilt home in the mountain town of Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. Burgos, 82, partially repaired his home with $14,000 in aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and $6,000 he had saved since his wife died four years ago, but says the funds are insufficient after a spike building material costs. Ramon Espinosa / AP Photo

Puerto Ricanstruction: Post-Maria Mental Health Catastrophe in Puerto Rico

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After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, through January 2018 there was a 246 percent spike in calls to the island’s suicide hotline, Línea PAS. Each Monday, during the 2018 hurricane season, Worldview presents a series called Puerto Ricanstruction. For this series, we discuss post-Maria life in Puerto Rico, and issues that matter to the people there, and to Chicago’s Puerto Rican Diaspora. Today, we’ll talk about mental healing in Puerto Rico with Dr. Cynthia Garcia Coll. A pediatric psychologist, she taught for 30 years at Brown University, and also taught at Carlos Albizu University. Coll is now adjunct professor at the University of Puerto Rico. She’ll discuss how she’s using various methods to facilitate healing in Puerto Rico, including through yoga.