Cit­i­zens af­fect­ed by ad­verse flood­ing can now ac­cess fi­nan­cial grants via the Crit­i­cal In­ci­dent Re­sponse Sys­tem, which has been of­fi­cial­ly ac­ti­vat­ed.

This was dis­closed by the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices via a re­lease is­sued on Tues­day.

The min­istry said it had part­nered with its key stake­hold­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit (DMU) of the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, through the AR­CGIS Sur­vey 123 Plat­form of shared in­for­ma­tion and elec­tron­ic as­sess­ments, to en­sure that sup­port is pro­vid­ed to af­fect­ed peo­ple in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

The min­istry of­fers grants to peo­ple im­pact­ed by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters who are el­i­gi­ble for:

• Emer­gency Food Sup­port.

• Up to $20,000 in fund­ing for Mi­nor House Re­pairs.

• Up to $15,000 for San­i­tary Plumb­ing As­sis­tance.

• A Cloth­ing Grant which is up to $1,000 per per­son.

• A School Sup­plies Grant which amounts to $700 for pri­ma­ry school chil­dren and $1,000 for sec­ondary school chil­dren.

• A grant to cov­er re­place­ment of house­hold items (up to a max­i­mum of $10,000); and

• Coun­selling and psy­choso­cial sup­port from the Min­istry’s Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

The min­istry said there is a Crit­i­cal In­ci­dent On­line Ap­pli­ca­tion Form avail­able to af­fect­ed peo­ple who have not yet been vis­it­ed by the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit of the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

The por­tal can be ac­cessed by log­ging on to the min­istry’s web­site at www.so­cial.gov.tt and com­plet­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion for dis­as­ter re­lief.

Of­fi­cers from the min­istry are said to al­so be in the field and are pro­cess­ing ap­pli­ca­tions in an ef­fort to re­store per­sons im­pact­ed as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

The min­istry’s toll-free Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Hot­line is al­so avail­able via 800-COPE, should any­one re­quire ur­gent coun­selling sup­port over the phone.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion and as­sis­tance, one can call the toll­free call cen­tre at 800-1MSD (1673), vis­it any of the so­cial wel­fare dis­trict of­fices in their re­spec­tive area, or send a mes­sage to any of the min­istry’s so­cial me­dia plat­forms.