Lo­cal NGOs, church­es, and some su­per­mar­kets have joined forces to send re­lief sup­plies to the peo­ple of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines (SVG) as an ex­plo­sive erup­tion at the La Soufriere vol­cano oc­curred at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8.42 am yes­ter­day.

Is There Not A Cause, (ITNAC) who has col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Tara­ji Foun­da­tion Team in SVG sent on Thurs­day and yes­ter­day to SVG, two ship­ments of re­lief sup­plies with more on the way.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, ITNAC founder Avonelle Hec­tor-Joseph told Guardian Me­dia, some su­per­mar­kets and church­es and even one me­dia out­let have col­lab­o­rat­ed with her NGO to sup­ply re­lief items and to act as col­lec­tion points for mem­bers of the pub­lic who wish to as­sist.

Part of the first two ship­ments al­so in­clud­ed four 1000-gal­lon wa­ter tanks which she said she hoped would reach in time to SVG yes­ter­day be­fore the coun­try’s wa­ter sup­ply was cut off or in the event, the wa­ter be­came con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed as a re­sult of the erup­tion.

“We are send­ing bot­tled wa­ter as well, but we are al­so send­ing as many tanks as we could so that peo­ple can store wa­ter,” said Hec­tor-Joseph.

She said due to SVG’s im­me­di­ate need for help, the NGO was al­so try­ing to get a char­tered boat to get more sup­plies across.

“The boats nor­mal­ly come on Tues­day and go on Thurs­day but we can­not risk wait­ing on that so we are in the process of get­ting a boat char­tered.”

Hec­tor-Joseph said sev­er­al col­lec­tion points have been set up across the coun­try and in To­ba­go as well, while a Go­Fundme and bank ac­counts have al­so been set up for per­sons wish­ing to do­nate mon­ey to pur­chase sup­plies.

She is hop­ing to ramp up sup­plies over the week­end as ITNAC in part­ner­ship with Syn­er­gy TV will host through­out Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, a col­lec­tion dri­ve in which peo­ple are asked to drop items off at the me­dia out­let.

She said sup­plies need­ed, in­clud­ed toi­letries, ba­by items, non-per­ish­able goods, bat­ter­ies, lamps, torch­lights, masks, gloves, hand sani­tis­ers, and gog­gles.

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ra­jiv Diptee to find out if the as­so­ci­a­tion was in any way em­bark­ing on re­lief ini­tia­tives to as­sist SVG, and was told the as­so­ci­a­tion was in con­ver­sa­tion with lo­cal sup­pli­ers to see what can be done.

Diptee said the as­so­ci­a­tion was mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion like many oth­er NGOs and was re­liant on the mech­a­nisms and lo­gis­tics in place to ef­fec­tive­ly as­sist.

He not­ed, NGOs were bet­ter poised lo­gis­ti­cal­ly for dis­tri­b­u­tion, so the as­so­ci­a­tion can act as a sup­pli­er to these or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“We stand to as­sist all the peo­ple who will be dis­placed and the in­dige­nous pop­u­la­tion of SVG and we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with our Cari­com broth­ers and sis­ters,” vowed Diptee.

The Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness Man­age­ment (ODPM) has al­so is­sued as­sis­tance to SVG in the form of bed cots. On its Twit­ter page yes­ter­day, the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), post­ed, that via the Re­gion­al Re­sponse Mech­a­nism RRM, the ODPM do­nat­ed 75 cots to SVG, which were to be, air­lift­ed to the is­land via the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem air­craft.

When con­tact­ed, ODPM head Ma­jor Rod­ney Smart, con­firmed the do­na­tion.

“They told us this morn­ing they re­ceived an ini­tial re­quest…they are work­ing on it and as soon as we get that, we will put that through our na­tion­al sys­tem and get it mov­ing up to them.”

In a state­ment lat­er is­sued yes­ter­day, the ODPM said through co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts with CDE­MA and the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) an­oth­er flight was sched­uled to re­turn Fri­day af­ter­noon to col­lect 225 ad­di­tion­al sleep­ing cots, all of which will be de­liv­ered to the is­land.

He said the ODPM had a na­tion­al sys­tem in place where it is al­ways in con­tact with the usu­al play­ers to help should such sit­u­a­tions arise. And all those play­ers were al­ready on stand-by.

He said they in­clud­ed, faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, civ­il so­ci­eties, and na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Smart said the cot do­na­tion was part of the pre-po­si­tion­ing re­gion­al sys­tem.

To as­sist with sup­plies or fi­nan­cial do­na­tions call ITNAC at 394-2042. Vis­it Face­book @ITNAC Trinidad for col­lec­tion lo­ca­tions. Or www.go­fundme.com —ITNAC- Soufriere vol­cano re­sponse.