Nationwide relief drive launched for quake-hit Venezuela

Trinidad and To­ba­go has launched a na­tion­wide hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief cam­paign for earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela, with col­lec­tion points open­ing across the coun­try and a dis­as­ter re­lief fund es­tab­lished to re­ceive pub­lic and cor­po­rate do­na­tions.

The ini­tia­tive was an­nounced af­ter a joint pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­er meet­ing con­vened to­day by the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs and the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment on the in­struc­tions of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The meet­ing was at­tend­ed by For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen, along with se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istries of De­fence, Health and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, in­clud­ing the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment.

Ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion, the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, the En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Se­wa In­ter­na­tion­al TT al­so at­tend­ed.

The Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor agreed on a co­or­di­nat­ed re­lief ef­fort that in­cludes the ac­cep­tance of pri­vate sec­tor do­na­tions at Ware­house Sheds 1 and 2 at the Port of Point Lisas, Ama­zon Dri­ve, Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

A na­tion­al col­lec­tion dri­ve be­gins to­day from 8 am to 4 pm in col­lab­o­ra­tion with all 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions, the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) and par­tic­i­pat­ing su­per­mar­kets.

Mon­e­tary do­na­tions can be made to the Dis­as­ter Re­lief Fund-Venezuela at First Cit­i­zens Bank, ac­count num­ber 3209042, at any branch or through on­line trans­fers.

The Gov­ern­ment is ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go to do­nate on­ly over-the-counter med­ical sup­plies, per­son­al hy­giene items in­clud­ing fem­i­nine hy­giene prod­ucts, non-per­ish­able food items, in­clud­ing bot­tled wa­ter with a shelf life of at least three months, and mat­tress­es and cots.

Of­fi­cials said they are co­or­di­nat­ing with lo­cal stake­hold­ers and Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to en­sure the safe and time­ly trans­port and de­liv­ery of re­lief sup­plies and pledged to keep the pub­lic up­dat­ed on on­go­ing ef­forts to as­sist the peo­ple of Venezuela.