The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go pro­vid­ed dis­as­ter re­lief as­sis­tance to a fam­i­ly af­fect­ed by a fire at Li­ons Gate, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, on Wednes­day. The as­sis­tance was de­liv­ered through the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Van­dana Mo­hit pre­sent­ed dis­as­ter re­lief grants to­talling $10,700 to Jef­fery Fri­day on be­half of his house­hold of four. The grants fol­lowed a fire that caused par­tial dam­age to the fam­i­ly’s home.

The as­sis­tance in­clud­ed a House­hold Items Grant of $5,000, a Cloth­ing Grant of $4,000 and a School Sup­plies Grant of $1,700. The grants are in­tend­ed to as­sist with re­plac­ing house­hold items, pur­chas­ing cloth­ing and meet­ing school-re­lat­ed needs.

The Min­istry func­tions as a sec­ond re­spon­der dur­ing dis­as­ters by pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance and sup­port ser­vices to af­fect­ed house­holds. Dis­as­ter re­sponse and the pro­cess­ing of re­lief grants are man­aged by the Na­tion­al So­cial De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme.

The Min­istry’s dis­as­ter re­lief pro­gramme op­er­ates un­der two ob­jec­tives. These are the pro­vi­sion of fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance for food and house­hold needs to dis­as­ter-af­fect­ed house­holds, and the de­liv­ery of coun­selling and re­fer­ral ser­vices to in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies im­pact­ed by dis­as­ters.

Min­is­ter Mo­hit ad­vised that the grants should be used for their stat­ed pur­pos­es and stat­ed that the Min­istry will con­tin­ue to pro­vide as­sis­tance to fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by dis­as­ters.

Jef­fery Fri­day ac­knowl­edged the as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry and stat­ed that the sup­port would as­sist his fam­i­ly fol­low­ing the fire.

The Min­istry stat­ed that it will con­tin­ue to pro­vide dis­as­ter-re­lat­ed as­sis­tance to house­holds across the coun­try in keep­ing with its man­date.