Trinidad and To­ba­go shines its bright­est when those in need plead for as­sis­tance. There is no stop­ping the gen­eros­i­ty of the hearts of the peo­ple of this coun­try when nat­ur­al dis­as­ter or oth­er events cause oth­ers to reach out.

It is no dif­fer­ent to­day, with the La Soufriere vol­cano in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines hav­ing erupt­ed. Once again, T&T is band­ing to­geth­er to help via co­or­di­nat­ed re­lief ef­forts from sev­er­al non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing Is there Not a Cause (ITNAC), the Foun­da­tion for the En­hance­ment and En­rich­ment of Life (FEEL) and SE­WA TT.

FEEL ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ele­na Vil­lafana-Sylvester said they ac­tu­al­ly start­ed col­lect­ing re­lief items for St Vin­cent one month ago af­ter re­ports of an im­mi­nent erup­tion be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing.

SE­WA TT pres­i­dent Re­van Teelucks­ingh said the or­gan­i­sa­tion will be do­nat­ing items for those deal­ing with the ef­fects of the vol­cano in the near fu­ture. He ex­plained that the im­me­di­ate needs of Vin­cen­tians are be­ing han­dled by the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), ITNAC and a cou­ple of oth­er groups.

Yes­ter­day, St Vin­cent Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were sched­uled to meet to talk about dif­fi­cul­ties with food sup­plies. Dam­age from the vol­cano was said to be so was ex­ten­sive in the is­land’s north­east re­gion that forests and farms were wiped out, with co­conut, bread­fruit, man­go, sour­sop, plan­tain and ba­nana crops de­stroyed.

Gon­salves said it could take four months for life to go back to nor­mal in St Vin­cent. In the mean­time, the is­land, which has about 100,000 in­hab­i­tants, is in dire need of help. The re­al­i­ty is that get­ting back to nor­mal could take much longer.

Al­ready, items such as cots, tents, wa­ter tanks and oth­er ba­sic food sup­plies have been flood­ing in­to the coun­try as oth­er re­gion­al gov­ern­ments of­fer as­sis­tance.

This morn­ing, a con­tin­gent of lo­cal sol­diers will be head­ing to St Vin­cent on the Galleons Pas­sage. The 50 per­son­nel will com­prise en­gi­neers, in­fantry/provost, med­ical and lo­gis­tics of­fi­cers. The TTDF con­tin­gent will be sta­tioned in SVG for two weeks in the first in­stance.

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry and ODPM have been co­or­di­nat­ing re­lief ef­forts and have or­gan­ised emer­gency sup­plies, in­clud­ing wa­ter, food es­sen­tials, toi­letries, hy­giene ma­te­r­i­al, ba­sic med­ical sup­plies and oth­er items which were re­quest­ed. Those sup­plies will be tak­en when the Galleons Pas­sage makes its jour­ney to­day.

When the ves­sel re­turns, T&T na­tion­als liv­ing in St Vin­cent will be repa­tri­at­ed home.

The T&T troops' as­sis­tance on the ground will be of tremen­dous help to our broth­ers and sis­ters in St Vin­cent who have been hard hit by the im­pact of the erup­tion.

Com­ing at a time when the is­land has not been spared by the im­pact of COVID-19, this dis­as­ter places new bur­dens on the Ralph Gon­za­lves gov­ern­ment. It is good that de­spite the many prob­lems each Caribbean coun­try faces, we have been able to come to­geth­er to help the peo­ple of St Vin­cent. This is a tremen­dous tes­ta­ment to the re­al­i­ty of who we are as a Caribbean peo­ple. When the chips are down, we ral­ly to­geth­er. If on­ly it can be this way all the time.