Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­bag­o­ni­ans are be­ing urged to do­nate at least 1,000 re­lief items to­day as the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) launch­es a marathon dri­ve to as­sist earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day, TEMA di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art ap­pealed to res­i­dents, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly's di­vi­sions, faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er groups to sup­port the ini­tia­tive, say­ing the June 24 earth­quakes left many Venezue­lans in ur­gent need of food and oth­er ba­sic sup­plies.

TEMA has part­nered with the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, with do­na­tions be­ing col­lect­ed at the Low­lands Mosque.

He said a mu­sic truck will ac­com­pa­ny the team to­day to raise aware­ness for the dri­ve.

Draw­ing on the To­ba­go adage of "one-one co­coa does fill bas­ket," he said TEMA is hop­ing to fill a three-tonne truck to send to Trinidad by Mon­day.

Stew­art said, "The peo­ple in Venezuela, over 20,000 build­ings af­fect­ed. I saw re­ports of peo­ple sleep­ing in the parks in makeshift tents. We need to step up our game, we need to move with alacrity to make sure we can pro­vide with our broth­ers and sis­ters in Venezuela."

Asked what TEMA has learned from the dis­as­ter, Stew­art said Caribbean gov­ern­ments must fo­cus on risk man­age­ment in­stead of dis­as­ter re­sponse.

"We have to look at build­ing codes; we have to un­der­stand we live in a seis­mic area. The North Amer­i­can plate and the South Amer­i­can plate, the Caribbean plate, they are all in­ter­fac­ing with each oth­er."

He not­ed that To­ba­go was rocked in 1997 by a pair of quakes in April that took a life and dam­aged build­ings, in­clud­ing a li­brary.

"Com­pre­hen­sive dis­as­ter man­age­ment is cru­cial," he said.