Government launches Venezuela earthquake relief drive

The Gov­ern­ment has launched a na­tion­wide hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief ef­fort for earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela, mo­bil­is­ing state agen­cies, the pri­vate sec­tor and mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions in what it de­scribes as a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al re­sponse to the un­fold­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued to­day, the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs said it launched the ini­tia­tive on the in­struc­tions of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar fol­low­ing a high-lev­el stake­hold­er meet­ing con­vened joint­ly with the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

The meet­ing brought to­geth­er Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Sean Sobers, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istries of De­fence, Health and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, through the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, ODPM, as well as ex­ec­u­tives from 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.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor agreed on a co­or­di­nat­ed re­lief pro­gramme to de­liv­er hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance to the Venezue­lan peo­ple in the af­ter­math of Thurs­day’s dev­as­tat­ing earth­quakes.

As part of the ini­tia­tive, pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions can de­liv­er do­na­tions to Ware­house Sheds 1 and 2 on Ama­zon Dri­ve at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

The Gov­ern­ment will al­so be­gin a na­tion­wide pub­lic col­lec­tion dri­ve on Mon­day, June 29. Col­lec­tion points will op­er­ate dai­ly be­tween 8 am and 4 pm through all 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions across Trinidad, the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, TEMA, and par­tic­i­pat­ing su­per­mar­kets.

The Gov­ern­ment is al­so en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go to make fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to the Dis­as­ter Re­lief Fund, Venezuela, es­tab­lished at First Cit­i­zens Bank. Do­na­tions can be made at any branch or through on­line bank­ing.

To en­sure re­lief ef­forts re­main fo­cused on the coun­try’s im­me­di­ate needs, the Gov­ern­ment is ask­ing donors to con­tribute on­ly spe­cif­ic cat­e­gories of sup­plies.

Re­quest­ed items in­clude over-the-counter med­ical sup­plies, per­son­al hy­giene prod­ucts, in­clud­ing fem­i­nine hy­giene items, non-per­ish­able food with a min­i­mum shelf life of three months, bot­tled wa­ter, as well as mat­tress­es and cots.

Of­fi­cials said lim­it­ing do­na­tions to these items would help en­sure aid reach­es those af­fect­ed quick­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly while re­duc­ing lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges.

The Min­istry added that it is work­ing close­ly with do­mes­tic stake­hold­ers and Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to co­or­di­nate the safe trans­porta­tion and prompt de­liv­ery of re­lief sup­plies.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is cur­rent­ly co­or­di­nat­ing with do­mes­tic stake­hold­ers and the au­thor­i­ties in Venezuela to en­sure the safe and ear­ly trans­port and de­liv­ery of all re­lief items,” the re­lease said.

Of­fi­cials al­so sought to re­as­sure fam­i­lies with rel­a­tives trav­el­ling in Venezuela.

The Min­istry con­firmed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Em­bassy in Cara­cas has made con­tact with all na­tion­als known to be tem­porar­i­ly in Venezuela as tourists.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, of­fi­cials have con­firmed that all Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als are safe, and arrange­ments are al­ready in place to fa­cil­i­tate their re­turn home at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty.

The Gov­ern­ment said the pub­lic will con­tin­ue to re­ceive up­dates as re­lief op­er­a­tions progress and as­sis­tance is de­liv­ered to those af­fect­ed by the dis­as­ter.