Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go Youth Coun­cil is ques­tion­ing whether the $500 ba­by grant be­ing of­fered by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) is suf­fi­cient to en­cour­age young peo­ple to be­come par­ents.

To­ba­go Youth Coun­cil sec­re­tary De­lano Joe­field de­scribed the grant as “a drip in the buck­et” while urg­ing young peo­ple to de­vel­op them­selves be­fore tak­ing on the ad­di­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of par­ent­hood.

On Tues­day, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­nounced that the grant was now avail­able, with par­ents of new­borns re­ceiv­ing $500 month­ly un­til the child turns five years old. The fa­cil­i­ty is retroac­tive to Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

The ini­tia­tive is one of sev­er­al mea­sures be­ing in­tro­duced by the THA to ad­dress To­ba­go’s de­clin­ing birthrate, which has fall­en by more than 50 per cent.

Sec­re­tary of Health Dr Faith Breb­nor told Guardian Me­dia that the is­land cur­rent­ly av­er­ages be­tween 30 and 40 births per month.

With ap­prox­i­mate­ly 420 births an­nu­al­ly, au­thor­i­ties have ex­pressed con­cern about the sit­u­a­tion, not­ing that To­ba­go once av­er­aged more than 1,000 births each year.

Joe­field said par­ent­hood had tak­en a back seat for many young peo­ple who were still seek­ing sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment.

“Speak­ing to young per­sons, one of the main chal­lenges they are fac­ing that de­ter them from par­ent­hood is un­em­ploy­ment and, for some, un­der­em­ploy­ment,” he said.

Joe­field said par­ents with­out a steady in­come would strug­gle to make ends meet.

“The ba­by grant is just $500 — and you could on­ly do so much with $500. Com­ple­ment­ed with salary from em­ploy­ment, I think it can do way much more. The $500 may sound like some­thing grand and nice, but in the grand scheme of things — that is a drip in the buck­et when deal­ing with a child.”

He said that, be­yond the ba­sic costs of food and cloth­ing, par­ents al­so had to con­sid­er health­care ex­pens­es.

“It is an in­cen­tive, but peo­ple still need mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment to pro­vide for the needs of the child and them­selves,” Joe­field said.

He ap­plaud­ed young peo­ple who as­pired to be­come par­ents, not­ing that many of their peers did not have par­ent­hood as a pri­or­i­ty.

“They want to en­joy their life right now. But I will al­so say, in or­der for your child to have the best pos­si­ble life, you must be the best pos­si­ble ver­sion of your­self.”

Joe­field said par­ents need­ed to work on them­selves to give their chil­dren the best pos­si­ble chance of suc­ceed­ing.

“For those who want to be­come aca­d­e­m­ic, get your prop­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions to get a prop­er job.

“For those who want to do tech­ni­cal-vo­ca­tion­al stuff, make sure you get your cer­tifi­cates and stream of in­come and de­vel­op your­self, so when your child comes in­to this world, they aren’t left want­i­ng and you aren’t left want­i­ng.”

Apart from the ba­by grant, the Di­vi­sion of Health and Well­ness al­so pro­vides par­ents of new­borns with a ba­by box con­tain­ing es­sen­tials such as di­a­pers, a breast pump, booties and oth­er items.

Breb­nor said the ini­tia­tives were not sole­ly in­tend­ed as in­cen­tives for par­ent­hood, but al­so to en­sure that new­borns and their par­ents re­ceived the nec­es­sary sup­port from the di­vi­sion.