KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) say they’re do­ing their best this Christ­mas to as­sist those who lost their jobs at the hands of the Gov­ern­ment.

These in­clude hun­dreds of for­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) and Re­for­esta­tion Work­ers.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, along with sev­er­al of her MPs, in­clud­ing Stu­art Young, Ka­reem Mar­celle, Chris­t­ian Birch­wood, Bri­an Man­ning, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, Kei­th Scot­land, Hans Des Vi­gnes and Do­minic Ro­main, said the de­mand for as­sis­tance has been much greater this year as many are with­out jobs this Christ­mas sea­son.

Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land said he’s as­sist­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,300 peo­ple with­in his con­stituen­cy al­ready.

“The in­crease was mon­u­men­tal. When you are ac­cus­tomed to tak­ing care of your­self, how lit­tle it is, and you can’t take care of your­self and your fam­i­ly. I don’t have to tell you how that must feel. So, that must be some­thing that is telling, but our spir­it will not be bro­ken. No­body will break our spir­it. We are rich in spir­it. We are rich in re­silience. And that’s the hall­mark of the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain South,” said Scot­land.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young said he’s do­ing his best to as­sist chil­dren of par­ents who have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the “cal­lous” ac­tions of the Gov­ern­ment.

Young said, “In Port-of-Spain North/ St Ann’s West, we have been try­ing to pro­vide as much sup­port as is pos­si­ble since Ju­ly. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, hun­dreds of con­stituents have lost their jobs...I have dis­trib­uted thou­sands of ham­pers over the months, done school book and sup­ply dri­ves and helped with uni­forms and book lists. Last week­end, I had my an­nu­al Chil­dren’s Christ­mas Par­ty, where we in­creased the num­bers that we catered for to try and bring some com­fort to our chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly those whose par­ents have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the un­car­ing and cal­lous ac­tions of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment... Ad­di­tion­al­ly, I am pur­su­ing le­gal ac­tion in the courts for ter­mi­nat­ed CEPEP con­trac­tors via Ju­di­cial Re­view pro­ceed­ings against the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate 350 con­trac­tors en masse.”

The Op­po­si­tion leader said she’s do­ing the same.

“They are in­clud­ed in my ham­per dis­tri­b­u­tion. As many as I can as­sist in my con­stituen­cy,” Beck­les said.

And oth­er MPs are fol­low­ing suit by pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance to their con­stituents.

Man­ning said, “Yes...The de­mand was high this year, but in part­ner­ship with our many sup­port­ers in the pri­vate sec­tor, we were able to as­sist hun­dreds of the most vul­ner­a­ble with­in the con­stituen­cy. The econ­o­my is in­cred­i­bly dif­fi­cult and many are con­cerned about the eco­nom­ic fu­ture of the coun­try.”

Mar­celle said, “A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of our food sup­port dri­ve went to for­mer CEPEP, URP and Re­for­esta­tion Work­ers. Ham­pers, vouch­ers and food cards were dis­trib­uted, over 200 ham­pers were pur­chased per­son­al­ly, a few spon­sors con­tributed vouch­ers and we re­ceived 250 tem­po­rary food from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment...This Gov­ern­ment has cre­at­ed a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis. “

Birch­wood added that the sea­son has been chal­leng­ing and try­ing.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Yes, ham­pers, food cards, gro­cery vouch­ers and a free flea mar­ket. With spe­cif­ic em­pha­sis on those who lost their jobs.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Robin­son-Reigs said her con­stituen­cy of­fice of Trinci­ty/Mal­oney pro­vides guid­ance and re­fer­rals for pri­vate-sec­tor em­ploy­ment.

“We al­so as­sist with ap­pli­ca­tions for grants avail­able through the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices. In ad­di­tion, we of­fer free coun­selling ser­vices pro­vid­ed by trained pro­fes­sion­als who re­side with­in the con­stituen­cy, en­sur­ing that sup­port is both ac­ces­si­ble and ground­ed in an un­der­stand­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty’s lived re­al­i­ties.”