The Cen­tre for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons re­cent­ly re­ceived a do­na­tion of face masks and tem­per­a­ture gauges from Sagi­cor, in what the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices de­scribes as a “dis­play of sol­i­dar­i­ty in the fight against COVID-19”.

In a news re­lease, the Min­istry re­ports that the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion hand­ed-over the do­na­tion to the Cen­tre on Thurs­day 28 May 2020, on be­half of donors, Sagi­cor.

The do­na­tion com­pris­es four tem­per­a­ture gauges and a quan­ti­ty of face masks.  The ex­change took place at the tem­po­rary home­less shel­ter on the ground floor of the Cen­tre, and was at­tend­ed by His Wor­ship the May­or, Al­der­man Joel Mar­tinez who pre­sent­ed the equip­ment and sup­plies to the Min­istry’s Chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer (Ag.), Mr. Michael Reid and Ad­min­is­tra­tor Man­ag­er for the So­ci­ety of St. Vin­cent de Paul, Mr. Mar­tin Alves.

Back in April this year, the Min­istry—to­geth­er with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force—con­struct­ed the street dweller fa­cil­i­ty to pro­vide tem­po­rary shel­ter for street dwellers dur­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis. To date, the cen­tre hous­es thir­ty-two males and one fe­male.

Dur­ing brief re­marks, Port of Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez thank­ing Sagi­cor for the do­na­tion, said that they will con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate to en­sure all cit­i­zens—es­pe­cial­ly the vul­ner­a­ble—are looked af­ter. Mr. Reid cit­ing ‘we are all in this to­geth­er’, thanked the May­or and Sagi­cor on be­half of the Ho­n­ourable Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices and the Ex­ec­u­tive of the Min­istry for the con­tri­bu­tion to safe­guard­ing the health and safe­ty of street dwellers and all staff and vol­un­teers on the front­lines at the shel­ter.

Pri­or to the pre­sen­ta­tion of the do­nat­ed items, May­or Mar­tinez was en­gaged by Mar­cel Nassy, a tem­po­rary res­i­dent of the fa­cil­i­ty, who sought to com­mend the Min­istry and the City of Port-of-Spain for their out­stand­ing ef­forts in al­le­vi­at­ing the plight of dis­tressed cit­i­zens like him­self, who were amongst the most at-risk for COVID19.

The fe­male res­i­dent at the shel­ter is Michelle Alexan­der, a mul­ti-tal­ent­ed lo­cal craftswoman and cer­ti­fied pas­try chef. Dur­ing a brief walk-through of the tem­po­rary shel­ter, Ms. Alexan­der proud­ly dis­played her wo­ven craft items, which in­clud­ed hand­bags and bath­room sets, which she had been able to pro­duce in the safe and nur­tur­ing en­vi­ron­ment of the shel­ter.

“I am one of many in­di­vid­u­als who are housed here at the Shel­ter,” Michelle Alexan­der said. “I am us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do some in­tro­spec­tion.”

Michelle Alexan­der said she is will­ing to learn from her pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ences and to grow and de­vel­op in the hopes that she would re­gain a sense of self in­de­pen­dence through her var­i­ous skills.