Educational

The respondents highlighted the need for training and education for single, unemployed women. Consistent with their feedback, some of the areas (e.g., mechanics, tiling) in which the women are currently being trained are not beneficial to them, as employers are reluctant to hire them due to their gender. As such, there is a need for training in areas that afford women more job opportunities. Of particular interest to two of the respondents was training in nursing and hairdressing. The women also expressed interest in finding opportunities to secure additional streams of income.

See Table 1 below for a comparison of findings immediately after Hurricane Maria and four years later which provides inferences to the main themes of the findings with respect to psychological distress and unmet needs.


**Table 1.** Comparison between psychosocial responses immediately after Hurricane Maria and four years later.


**Table 1.** *Cont.*

**Table 1.** *Cont.*


Source: Table by author.

The findings show that there were not many differences immediately after the passing of Hurricane Maria and four years later. Table 1 shows that the women were able to speak more about their situation four years later as opposed to immediately after the hurricane. It seems as if they had the time, despite their challenges, to process and assess their current situation more effectively and articulate their needs. The findings also showed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to the setbacks in the social, economic and infrastructural spheres. One of the main themes

was unmet needs. Training is available, but not in the area for the most wanted skills. Another theme is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created challenges and setbacks for recovery, both psychologically, socially, economically and educationally. Persons had to be isolated in their homes because of COVID lockdowns and protocols and were unable to socialise or see their loved ones. This seems to have negatively contributed to the categories mentioned.

The psychological stress issue remained immediately and four years later, in line with Martin (2015), Graham (2012) and Goodman (2012) in the literature. They posit that psychological distress affects persons immediately after a disaster and a long time after in many ways.

Our findings are in keeping with the following authors. Roque (2022) posits that most aid provided post-Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was mostly as a response to physical and material damage. She believes that efforts to support the mental health of persons after a natural disaster should be comparable. She continues that it should be seen as just as important as the direct response to physical damage. Psychological issues should be given priority and addressed. As such, awareness of mental health issues should be given the necessary attention by government. Awareness campaigns on the maintenance of mental health and its contribution to well-being and health should be provided by the media. The creation of support groups in communities can greatly improve mental health challenges in all locations on the island.

Graham (2012) states that many medical offices remained closed for weeks after the passing of Hurricane Sandy, leaving persons without access to prescription medications. The power outage left many feeling frightened and emotions experienced were that of despair, hopelessness and anxiety. Goodman (2012) adds that a lot of medical problems left many persons in poor health.

Female-headed households are viewed as a vulnerable population according to Kashyap and Mahanta (2018), Armas, and Gavris, (2013) and Chanty and Samchan (2014) as mentioned in the literature, and our findings support their work. They all report that women are vulnerable because of present gender inequalities, low socio-economic status and the gender norms that pervade societies.

### **7. Discussion and Recommendations**
