Central families receive $462,000 in disaster and home repair grants

Fifty-nine house­holds across cen­tral Trinidad have re­ceived more than $462,000 in Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance through dis­as­ter re­lief and home re­pair grants aimed at help­ing vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies re­cov­er and re­build.

The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices dis­trib­uted the grants dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny held at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Au­di­to­ri­um on Mon­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, the as­sis­tance will ben­e­fit 163 peo­ple and to­tals $462,007.75.

The ma­jor­i­ty of the fund­ing was al­lo­cat­ed through Dis­as­ter Re­lief Grants, with 57 house­holds rep­re­sent­ing 158 ben­e­fi­cia­ries re­ceiv­ing a com­bined $418,905.75. An ad­di­tion­al two house­holds, rep­re­sent­ing five ben­e­fi­cia­ries, re­ceived Mi­nor Home Re­pair Grants val­ued at $43,102.

Speak­ing at the dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny, Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Van­dana Mo­hit said the ini­tia­tive rep­re­sent­ed more than fi­nan­cial sup­port and was in­tend­ed to re­as­sure cit­i­zens fac­ing dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances.

Mo­hit said the im­pact of the grants should be mea­sured by what they make pos­si­ble for fam­i­lies in need.

“The re­al sto­ry is what they rep­re­sent. A roof re­paired be­fore the next rainy sea­son. Fur­ni­ture re­placed af­ter flood­wa­ters de­stroyed every­thing. Chil­dren re­turn­ing to bed­rooms in­stead of makeshift sleep­ing arrange­ments. Fam­i­lies find­ing hope where, on­ly weeks ago, there was un­cer­tain­ty, that is what these grants tru­ly mean,” she said.

Mo­hit al­so as­sured re­cip­i­ents that Gov­ern­ment sup­port would con­tin­ue be­yond the dis­tri­b­u­tion ex­er­cise.

“We are not in­ter­est­ed in mak­ing one ap­pear­ance and dis­ap­pear­ing,” she said. “We are com­mit­ted to show­ing up, fol­low­ing through, and de­liv­er­ing for the peo­ple. That is the stan­dard we have set for our­selves, and it is the stan­dard by which we in­tend to be judged.”

The min­istry said the grants form part of its Na­tion­al So­cial De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme, which pro­vides as­sis­tance to vul­ner­a­ble house­holds as they re­cov­er from hard­ship and un­der­take es­sen­tial re­pairs.