The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices dis­trib­uted more than $269,000 in Dis­as­ter Re­lief Grants to over 40 house­holds in Pe­nal/Debe, Siparia, and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties on Sat­ur­day.

The grants, de­liv­ered at the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion on SS Erin Road, ben­e­fit­ed 160 peo­ple through 65 awards.

The pro­gramme is man­aged through the Na­tion­al So­cial De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme and pro­vides fi­nan­cial sup­port to fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by re­cent dis­as­ters.

Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit, who over­saw the dis­tri­b­u­tion, said many fam­i­lies have faced de­lays and un­cer­tain­ty in re­ceiv­ing aid.

“Far too many of you have en­dured the frus­tra­tion of wait­ing, the anx­i­ety of not know­ing when re­lief would come, and the chal­lenge of stretch­ing one dol­lar to cov­er many needs. To­day we change that sto­ry, be­cause the vul­ner­a­ble can­not af­ford to wait,” she said.

Min­is­ter Mo­hit al­so praised the re­cip­i­ents’ re­silience, adding the sup­port is meant to as­sist house­holds in re­build­ing af­ter dis­as­ter-re­lat­ed hard­ships.