By Admin. Updated 1:45 p.m., Saturday, December 17, 2022, Atlantic Standard Time (GMT-4).
Members of (10) families on the Leeward side of mainland St. Vincent say the are “happy” as they have benefited from cash grants of $1,200 each because of a partnership between the Rotary Club South and Cari-On SVG.
The families received the monies at a ceremony on Thursday.
According to Mr. Kurt Dougan, President of the Rotary Club South, the club has done substantial work in collaboration with Cari-On to help bring relief to persons affected by the 2021 La Soufrière volcanic eruptions.
“We saw 10 households receiving cheques of 1200 dollars to assist with their rehabilitation,” he said.
He said the criteria for selection was single parent households with little to no income, or households with elderly persons within.
Meanwhile, some representatives of the families expressed their gratitude to Rotary and Cari-On for the donations which they say was “timely”.
According to Ms. Samantha Bailey, the Kingstown-based representative of CARI-ON, CARI-ON SVG Disaster Preparedness (CARI-ON), an Ontario registered organization comprising mainly of SVG nationals in Toronto was formed in 2019 to assist nationals in the diaspora to prepare themselves and be in a position to assist when disasters strike St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
CARI-ON is part of the umbrella group called Canadian Caribbean Disaster Relief Action (CCaDiRA) which consists of several Caribbean communities in the Greater Toronto Area that have similar objectives.
Due to its existence when La Soufriere erupted in April 2021, CARI-ON was in a position to act for the SVG nationals in the Greater Toronto Area to coordinate relief efforts for the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
She said CARI-ON has so far shipped sixteen 40-foot containers of goods donated by scores of Canadians to Kingstown. Along with the donated goods CARI-ON also collected funds which have been used to defray the cost of coordinating and shipping those containers and to support relief efforts in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
CARI-ON and the Rotary Club South in Kingstown have been collaborating on a number of initiatives to assist affected persons and on December 15, cheques of EC$1,200.00 each were handed over to 10 households from the Leeward side of mainland St. Vincent. A similar number of households from the Windward side had earlier received similar amounts. Ms. Samantha Bailey, the Kingstown-based representative of CARI-ON and Mr. Kurt Dougan, President of the Rotary Club made the presentations.
One News St.Vincent 