Caris­sa Lee

With two chil­dren and no job, Yvonne Joseph lined up out­side the TTPost of­fice on St Vin­cent Street, Port of Spain, yes­ter­day hop­ing her in­com­plete Salary Re­lief Grant form sub­mis­sion would be ac­cept­ed.

“I hop­ing we get through by the grace of God,” she said.

But Joseph’s form was miss­ing an im­por­tant piece of in­for­ma­tion. Since her ter­mi­na­tion, she has been un­able to get in con­tact with her em­ploy­er, whose sig­na­ture was im­por­tant on the grant form.

She in­stead at­tached her ter­mi­na­tion let­ter which was is­sued on March 31st.

“We call­ing the of­fice and no­body an­swer­ing,” she said.

The now un­em­ployed moth­er, along with her two of her col­leagues, said they now don’t know where their next meal is com­ing from.

“Is cry I doh want to cry, god know my heart,” Joseph said.

“It re­al hard,” her col­league shout­ed in the back­ground, as he made his way to the So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices build­ing high­er up the street to fill out a Rental As­sis­tance Grant Form.

Across the road, one woman, who had just fin­ished sub­mit­ting her form, said she was thank­ful for the grant from the Gov­ern­ment. Asked her how she was cop­ing, she re­cit­ed a Bible scrip­ture from Chron­i­cles 7:14.

“If my peo­ple who are called by my name hum­ble them­selves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heav­en and will for­give their sin and heal their land.”

She then walked off.

At the St Vin­cent Street TTPost of­fice, hun­dreds lined up from as ear­ly as 7 am with re­lief grant forms.

Be­fore the of­fice opened, the line stretched from the en­trance to Queen Street as those in line prac­tised so­cial dis­tanc­ing and wore their face masks. Peo­ple who were un­sure about what was need­ed for sec­tions filled their forms out in the line. Those with com­plet­ed forms were able to sub­mit and leave with­in min­utes.