Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

As res­cue and re­cov­ery ef­forts con­tin­ue in earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela, Se­wa In­ter­na­tion­al TT pres­i­dent Re­van Teelucks­ingh is urg­ing the pub­lic to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s re­lief dri­ve as it pre­pares to ship $100,000 worth of much-need­ed tools this week­end to as­sist emer­gency re­spon­ders.

The ship­ment com­pris­es more than 180 pieces of spe­cialised equip­ment, care­ful­ly se­lect­ed to sup­port de­bris clear­ance, emer­gency ac­cess, pump­ing op­er­a­tions, tem­po­rary shel­ter, light­ing, site safe­ty and re­spon­der pro­tec­tion.

From gas gen­er­a­tors and floor cut­ters to shov­els, jack­ham­mers and cord­less tools, Teelucks­ingh said every do­na­tion is be­ing care­ful­ly con­vert­ed in­to the items most ur­gent­ly need­ed by af­fect­ed fam­i­lies and res­cuers in dis­as­ter-hit com­mu­ni­ties.

Speak­ing dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at Per­sad’s D’ Food King su­per­mar­ket in Bar­rack­pore yes­ter­day, he said the equip­ment list was com­piled af­ter care­ful con­sul­ta­tion with those di­rect­ly in­volved in the re­lief ef­fort.

“We would have sat down and draft­ed a group of tools, a set of tools, based on in­for­ma­tion from the Venezue­lan am­bas­sador, based on in­for­ma­tion from peo­ple on the ground in Venezuela. Se­wa TT has a team in Colom­bia that moves across to Venezuela, and now they all have giv­en us feed­back on what is re­quired.”

Teelucks­ingh said Se­wa TT and its long­stand­ing part­ner, Per­sad’s D’ Food King, fund­ed the pur­chase of the tools, while To­tal Tools pro­vid­ed them “at a ridicu­lous­ly low price, far be­low re­tail costs.”

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion is al­so aim­ing to send $1 mil­lion worth of food sup­plies, pack­aged in 2,000 re­lief buck­ets, each con­tain­ing enough food to feed a fam­i­ly of four for one week.

“So the re­sponse is good from the pub­lic, and we are en­cour­ag­ing the pub­lic right now to fo­cus on go­ing to the var­i­ous su­per­mar­kets, fo­cus on the part­ner su­per­mar­kets, and make a con­tri­bu­tion to the su­per­mar­kets,” he said, ex­plain­ing that mon­e­tary do­na­tions are be­ing ac­cept­ed at part­ner su­per­mar­kets, al­low­ing Se­wa to pur­chase sup­plies di­rect­ly from dis­trib­u­tors.

Giv­en the wide­spread dev­as­ta­tion, Teelucks­ingh ac­knowl­edged that trans­port­ing re­lief to Venezuela re­mains chal­leng­ing, as even the port work­ers were af­fect­ed.

“It is un­rea­son­able to feel that we can just send any and every­thing to Venezuela, and they will have all the stor­age and every­thing put to­geth­er to use. So, we have to be very ef­fi­cient.”

Group De­vel­op­ment ex­ec­u­tive at Per­sad’s D’ Food King, Ish­vani Per­sad, said the com­pa­ny was com­pelled to re­spond af­ter see­ing the dev­as­ta­tion in Venezuela.

She said the ship­ment was care­ful­ly planned to in­clude equip­ment such as gaso­line-pow­ered wa­ter pumps and heavy-du­ty steel shov­els need­ed to sup­port res­cue and re­cov­ery ef­forts.

Per­sad said busi­ness­es have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to use their re­sources and part­ner­ships to help com­mu­ni­ties in cri­sis.

“No act of com­pas­sion is too small when peo­ple are suf­fer­ing. Be­cause com­mu­ni­ties are not re­built by gov­ern­ments alone. They are re­built by neigh­bours. By vol­un­teers. By faith-based groups. By busi­ness­es. By or­di­nary peo­ple choos­ing to care when care is need­ed most. The true mea­sure of a busi­ness is not on­ly how it per­forms in sea­sons of pros­per­i­ty, but how it re­sponds when its neigh­bours are hurt­ing.”

Lisa Ar­joon­s­ingh, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of To­tal Tools by Celi­nas Mar­ket­ing Ltd, said the com­pa­ny im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond­ed when Se­wa ap­proached them with a “high­ly spe­cif­ic needs list,” sup­ply­ing, among oth­er items, spe­cialised light­ing, gen­er­a­tors and de­mo­li­tion equip­ment to sup­port search-and-res­cue op­er­a­tions in ar­eas left with­out elec­tric­i­ty and to help res­cuers reach peo­ple trapped be­neath col­lapsed struc­tures.

Na­pari­ma MP Dr Navin­dra Roop­nar­ine praised the ini­tia­tive, say­ing the sup­plies rep­re­sent­ed far more than hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid.

“The sup­plies be­ing sent to­day may be mea­sured in box­es and pal­lets, but their true val­ue can­not be mea­sured. They car­ry hope. They car­ry com­fort. They car­ry the re­as­sur­ance that there are peo­ple be­yond Venezuela’s bor­ders who care deeply about their well­be­ing and re­cov­ery,” he said.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic will­ing to make fi­nan­cial do­na­tions to­wards this re­lief can do so at all branch­es of Per­sad’s D’ Food King, Massy Stores, Xtra Foods, Bet­ter Deal and S&S Per­sad.

Fi­nan­cial do­na­tions can al­so be made at Chase Mart in Chase Vil­lage and Low Cost Su­per­mar­ket in Cunu­pia.