Yvonne Webb

A con­voy of 12 ship­ping con­tain­ers, each mea­sur­ing 40 feet, packed with items val­ued over TT$2 mil­lion, left San Fer­nan­do on Wednes­day bound for the Port of Pt Lisas from where it will be shipped to hur­ri­cane- rav­aged Haiti on Sat­ur­day.

The items were col­lect­ed over a pe­ri­od of 11 days through the Help 4 Haiti ini­tia­tive which was launched by San Fer­nan­do May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein on Oc­to­ber 11.

The ship­ment con­tained build­ing ma­te­ri­als, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, canned food, mat­tress­es, cloth­ing and oth­er items.

It is the largest ship­ment to leave T&T for Haiti since the is­land was dev­as­tat­ed by Hur­ri­cane Matthew in ear­ly Oc­to­ber, leav­ing death and de­struc­tion in its path.

Traf­fic backed up along Cross Cross­ing and the South­ern Main Road as trucks car­ry­ing the 12 con­tain­ers left Skin­ner Park and lined low­er Cipero Street be­fore take off.

The con­tain­ers will be tran­shipped through Ja­maica and are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Haiti in about eight days.

Ho­sein said he was heart­ened to see oth­er cor­po­ra­tions fol­low the ini­tia­tive tak­en by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Barkah Foun­da­tion to help Haiti.

"It is a good cause. If we did not have a cut-off point, we would be fill­ing at least two more con­tain­ers be­cause peo­ple just giv­ing and won't stop giv­ing."

Guardian Me­dia has teamed up with lo­cal char­i­ty group, Is There Not a Cause (ITNAC), to as­sist in bring­ing re­lief to the al­most two mil­lion Haitians who are in des­per­ate need.