?The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has launched an ini­tia­tive to as­sist earth­quake vic­tims in Haiti. Dubbed Haiti for the Long Haul, chief sec­re­tary of the THA Orville Lon­don said every­one must ac­cept that the re­cov­ery process must be sus­tained over many years. A re­lease from the THA stat­ed: "Quite of­ten, the in­ten­si­ty of the re­sponse to a dis­as­ter di­min­ish­es dra­mat­i­cal­ly with the pas­sage of time and there­fore the THA is rec­om­mend­ing that while the heart-rend­ing sights from Haiti are still fresh, To­ba­go donors should com­mit to con­tribut­ing sup­port for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od."

Con­tri­bu­tions can be made to the To­ba­go/Haiti Re­lief Fund at the four ma­jor banks. The re­lease added that the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency has been man­dat­ed to co-or­di­nate To­ba­go's re­sponse and to col­lab­o­rate with the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment and oth­er re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions to en­sure that the con­tri­bu­tions are utilised to max­i­mum ef­fect. Mean­while, the Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist Church, through the Ad­ven­tist De­vel­op­ment and Re­lief Agency (ADRA), is con­tin­u­ing its ef­forts to help Haiti.

Through the ADRA Caribbean and the ADRA In­ter­na­tion­al, a re­source team has set up a wa­ter treat­ment plant on the grounds of the Hait­ian Ad­ven­tist Uni­ver­si­ty. A state­ment from the South­ern Caribbean Con­fer­ence of SDA said more than 25,00 peo­ple were housed at the uni­ver­si­ty. It said the Ad­ven­tist Hos­pi­tal of Haiti was still stand­ing and was be­ing used by med­ical per­son­nel to at­tend to the sick. Some points of col­lec­tion in­clude the Care­nage SDA, San Fer­nan­do Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices Build­ing, South­ern Caribbean Con­fer­ence of the SDA and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean in Mara­cas, St Joseph.

?Hands for Haiti

?Do­na­tions to­wards the To­ba­go/Haiti Re­lief Fund can be made to:

1. Re­pub­lic Bank–020157982331

2. Sco­tia­bank (Gulf City, Low­lands)– 120054000744

3. First Cit­i­zens–1817265

4. RBTT–0317196509

?US$5m more from Brazil

?In ad­di­tion to Brazil's US$19.79 mil­lion pledge, Pres­i­dent Luiz Ina­cio Lu­la da Sil­va is con­sid­er­ing send­ing a fur­ther US$5 mil­lion. The Em­bassy of Brazil in T&T said food, med­i­cine and oth­er hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance had al­ready been sent. Brazil is the leader of the Unit­ed Na­tions Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Mis­sion in Haiti. Close to 900 sol­diers are ex­pect­ed to go to Haiti to help with re­con­struc­tion. Some 21 Brazil­ians died in the earth­quake.