“There is suf­fi­cient food in the ham­per box­es NAMDE­VO is pro­vid­ing in its food ini­tia­tive for school chil­dren, and peo­ple should stop mak­ing mis­chief…”

That’s the as­sess­ment of Sen­a­tor Don­na Cox, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, fol­low­ing her tour of the fa­cil­i­ties at NAMDE­V­CO’s Pack­ing House in Pi­ar­co, ear­li­er to­day.

The vis­it to the Pack­ing House came fol­low­ing sev­er­al com­plaints on so­cial me­dia  of  al­leged  de­ple­tion  of  the  Ham­per  box­es, which  are  be­ing  dis­trib­uted  to chil­dren reg­is­tered un­der the Na­tion­al School Feed­ing Pro­gramme, at  present.

“I  have  seen  and  re­ceived  sev­er­al  com­plaints  from  per­sons  who in­di­cat­ed that the items are in­suf­fi­cient, so to­day, I have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness and ex­plore the pro­duce my­self.  It would seem that some per­sons are be­ing mis­chie­vous and re­mov­ing items from the bags be­fore they take pho­tos and post for cir­cu­la­tion on So­cial Me­dia,” Min­is­ter Cox ex­plained. 

She stat­ed: “De­spite this, I am quite pleased by the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of items which make up the box­es, and I am con­fi­dent that this ini­tia­tive is a very good one.  In fact, since the dis­tri­b­u­tions be­gan on No­vem­ber 30th, sev­er­al ben­e­fi­cia­ries have ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the Ham­per Box­es.”

“The Gov­ern­ment—through the Min­istries of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Ed­u­ca­tion and Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries—re­mains com­mit­ted to bring­ing re­lief to those who have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the im­pact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to en­sure that no one is left be­hind,” she added.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter Cox, the ini­tia­tive cre­ates a lo­cal mar­ket for the na­tion’s farm­ers.

“It is my hope  that  our  na­tion’s  youth  will  take  ex­am­ple  and  be  en­cour­aged  to  make  agri­cul­ture  their pre­ferred ca­reer choice,” she said.

The Min­is­ter was ac­com­pa­nied by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Sheila Seecha­ran, and joined by NAMDE­V­CO’s Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Ms Nir­mala De­bysingh-Per­sad, as well as the Deputy Chair­man of the Board, Mr Wayne In­niss.

Ac­cord­ing to Ms De­bysingh-Per­sad, the food pack­ages—which com­prise a mix­ture of fresh pro­duce such as veg­etable, fruits, pro­vi­sions and milk—will pro­vide bal­anced and nu­tri­tion­al meals for the coun­try’s chil­dren. 

“Fruits and  veg­eta­bles  were  se­lect­ed  from  farms  reg­is­tered  with NAMDE­V­CO, which  are cer­ti­fied and mon­i­tored for good agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices, farms that can con­sis­tent­ly pro­vide high qual­i­ty and nu­tri­tion­al food to re­cip­i­ents,” she not­ed.

Each re­cip­i­ent will re­ceive a ham­per val­ued at $250.00, which com­pris­es two bags of pro­duce con­tain­ing a bag of ground pro­vi­sions,  callaloo  bush,  pump­kin,  a  bag  of  lo­cal  fruits  and  veg­eta­bles  in­clud­ing  pineap­ples,  mel­ons, me­l­on­gene, toma­toes, sweet pep­pers, cu­cum­bers, as well as a car­ton of milk and co­coa.

“Some 79, 000 chil­dren reg­is­tered un­der the school nu­tri­tion pro­gramme will ben­e­fit from this ini­tia­tive, which will cost tax­pay­ers $19.75 mil­lion,” said Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Sheila Seecha­ran.

NAMDE­V­CO in­tends to dis­trib­ute 1,300 pack­ages per day.  

Ar­eas which al­ready have re­ceived pack­ages since dis­tri­b­u­tion be­gan on No­vem­ber 30th in­clude: Fyz­abad, Ma­yaro South Oropouche, Moru­ga, Rio Claro, Princes Town, Mara­bel­la, Pleas­antville, Ca­roni, Cou­va, El Do­ra­do, Ari­ma, St Au­gus­tine Mal­oney, La Hor­quet­ta, El  So­cor­ro,  Tacarigua,  Aranguez,  Blan­chisseuse,  Care­nage,  Diego  Mar­tin,  San­gre  Grande, Va­len­cia and Tamana.