Meet the Team
Avril’s professional development spans several sectors, including, business, finance, training and facilitation, leadership and management, speaking and coaching. She credits being a mother to her daughter as her deepest passion and greatest accomplishment.
For leisure, she volunteers extensively to support her communities in Florida and Jamaica; enjoys reading and swimming and uses her amazing talent in decor and interior designs. She is a wine connoisseur of sorts and a tennis mom.
Jezeel distinguished himself at the Norman Manley Law School where he acted as one of the Chairs of the Corporate and Commercial Law Working Group and was a member of the law school’s winning Lex-Caribbean Client Interview Competition Team. He was also awarded The K.C. Burke Memorial Prize for being the student with the most outstanding performance in the area of Corporate and Commercial Law.
Prior to joining MF&G Jezeel served the Government of Canada in Jamaica in the Immigration, International Trade and Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Services departments. He also taught law at the high school level and privately tutored law at the LLB and LEC levels. Jezeel is fluent in French, and has been recognized by the French Embassy, The Jamaica Association of French Teachers and the Alliance Francaise de la Jamaique, for his contributions to the French diplomatic core in Jamaica.
Jezeel has a passion for travelling, cooking, music and fine arts and is a member of the Liguanea Art Festival’s organizing team, Jamaica’s largest annual art festival.
His strength is his approach to community development, which is guided by the belief that community members are intelligent enough to assess their problems and come up with solutions to address those problems.
Damien has training in education and literacy, counselling, theology and philosophy and participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation. Damien’s work experience spans education, media, customer service, administration and community development. He brings to Each One Reach One Foundation his experience in project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, strategic planning and organisationa
Dr. Jermaine McCalpin is an internationally recognized expert and consultant on transitional justice, genocides, reparations and truth commissions. He has travelled to South Africa, Cambodia and Armenia and across the US and Canada presenting on the Armenian genocide, reparations for slavery and Native American genocides. He is currently Chair of the African and African American Studies Program at New Jersey City University.
Dr. McCalpin was previously Associate Director of the Centre for Caribbean Thought and Lecturer of Transitional Justice in the Department of Government, University of the West Indies, Mona. He attended the distinguished Calabar High School. He received his B.Sc in Political Science and International Relations (First Class Honours)in 1999 and M.Sc (2002) from The University of the West Indies, Mona. Dr. McCalpin later earned his M.A.(2002) and Ph.D. in Political Science in 2006 from Brown University. Dr. McCalpin specializes in Africana political philosophy, Caribbean political thought, and transitional justice.
Dr. McCalpin has a passion for education, social justice and mentoring. He helps to mould the lives of many young men at Calabar,UWI and across Jamaica. He serves as Academic Affairs Coordinator for the Calabar Old Boys’ Association in Jamaica and the Director of Academic Enrichment for the NY Chapter. He is a member of the School Leadership Team at Intermediate School 59 in Queens NY and was recently elected to the Community Education Council of District 29 in New York City.
He also serves as an associate minister at Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn NY and an itinerant Deacon of Kencot Christian Fellowship in Kingston, Jamaica. He is a frequent contributor to current affairs programmes in Jamaica, the UK, Canada, Armenia and the United States. He is married with one daughter.
