Derek Achong

The Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) has part­nered with NGO Se­wa In­ter­na­tion­al TT (Se­wa TT) to pro­vide a safe and ef­fi­cient method for cit­i­zens to pro­vide re­lief sup­plies to cit­i­zens of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines (SVG) af­fect­ed by the erup­tion of the La Soufriere Vol­cano.

Both or­gan­i­sa­tions re­vealed the plan dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at Su­per Qual­i­ty Su­per­mar­ket in Trinci­ty yes­ter­day.

Se­wa TT pres­i­dent Re­van Teelucks­ingh ex­plained that un­der the ini­tia­tive cit­i­zens are be­ing asked to con­tribute to his or­gan­i­sa­tion’s plan to ship 2,000 sealed buck­ets con­tain­ing sup­plies to St Vin­cent in the next two weeks.

Each buck­et will con­tain non-per­ish­able food items, which can feed a fam­i­ly of four for three days, and med­ical sup­plies. The items in the buck­ets have an es­ti­mat­ed val­ue of $500 as they are to be pur­chased from sup­pli­ers at their cost price.

Cit­i­zens can con­tribute, what they can, by mak­ing do­na­tions while pay­ing their bill at su­per­mar­kets across T&T, which have signed up for the ini­tia­tive.

Teelucks­ingh ex­plained that us­ing the ini­tia­tive cit­i­zens can con­tribute to the spe­cif­ic needs of SVG cit­i­zens as the items in the pack­ages were se­lect­ed based on dis­cus­sions with the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), which is co­or­di­nat­ing dis­as­ter re­lief.

Ac­cord­ing to Teelucks­ingh, the buck­ets along with large quan­ti­ties of bot­tled wa­ter would be hand­ed over to the Of­fice of Dis­as­ters Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), which would then trans­fer them to CDE­MA for dis­tri­b­u­tion.

He al­so not­ed that it would help pro­tect cit­i­zens dur­ing the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“You don’t have to dri­ve to any­body and in­ter­act with them,” Teelucks­ingh said.

He ex­plained that the process would al­so pre­vent in­fect­ed per­sons from con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing sup­plies and in turn in­fect vol­un­teers, who are pack­ing and trans­port­ing the buck­ets.

Teelucks­ingh al­so sug­gest­ed that one-gal­lon bot­tles of wa­ter have been ear­marked as op­posed to sin­gle-serv­ing cas­es to pre­vent plas­tic pol­lu­tion dur­ing re­lief ef­forts.

Speak­ing at the event, pres­i­dent of SATT Ra­jiv Diptee ex­plained that al­though his or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mem­bers have been fi­nan­cial­ly im­pact­ed by the pan­dem­ic, they still ac­cept­ed that they had a du­ty to as­sist.

“It does not ab­scond us from hav­ing a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to as­sist where a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter has oc­curred,” Diptee said.

“T&T con­sid­ers it­self as a leader in the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty and we have to act as lead­ers. We have to take front,” Diptee said.

Diptee not­ed that many large su­per­mar­ket chains and some in­de­pen­dent ones across Trinidad had al­ready signed up to fa­cil­i­tate do­na­tions, with more in­clud­ing those in To­ba­go, ex­pect­ed to join in the com­ing days.

Side­bar

Con­firmed Su­per­mar­kets - All branch­es of:

Bet­ter Deal Su­per­mar­ket

Best Deal Foods

Croisée/Chase Mart

Massy Stores

M.S Food City Su­per­mar­ket

Park View Su­per­mar­ket

Per­sad’s D’ Food King

PC Stop N Shop Su­per­mar­ket

S&S Per­sad Su­per­mar­ket

Su­per Qual­i­ty

Tru Valu Su­per­mar­ket

West Bees Su­per­mar­ket

Xtra Foods