Christmas blues

CHRISTMAS is always a hard time for many. But this Christmas is shaping up to be bluer than usual, according to reports reaching this newspaper from a spate of charitable organisations that are being overwhelmed by a startling increase in people seeking help. Public servants are battling for Christmas back pay, but some people are battling just to survive.

According to our lead story on December 17 by reporter Paula Lindo, organisations such as Is There Not A Cause (Itnac), the Living Water Community, the Salvation Army, Sewa International TT, the TT Woman’s Forum, and the Coosal’s Group of Companies are all seeing an across-the-board increase in demand for donations and relief.

They say shelters are packed. Hampers have run out. Unemployed people cannot pay rent. Calls and letters asking for assistance are pouring in. Some of these charities, recently mobilised to help Jamaica in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, are stretched. As a result, religious figures like Roman Catholic Archbishop Jason Gordon are begging people to donate Christmas meals.

It’s a dire counter-narrative to the economic statistics and reassuring platitudes so often doled out by UNC and PNM politicians when it comes to the state of the economy.

The new government cannot be blamed for the situation it has inherited from the last. But the Cabinet cannot, in good conscience, turn a blind eye to what appears to be a wave of suffering that is this year rising.

In October, Davendranath Tancoo announced budget measures to provide some relief to the most vulnerable, including the removal of VAT on food items, funds to tackle period poverty, the processing of 6,400 senior citizen applications, the continuation of utilities assistance, and student equipment subsidies. This month, Khadijah Ameen confirmed her ministry had begun a new programme of public space upkeep employing 220 people.

But the government has on its hands a much bigger problem than all these interventions. It may require a reorientation and a deepening of the social safety net. Or at least some effort should be made to supplement flows to civil society organisations that have the networks to get help to communities. Ministries and local government corporations, too, need to play a role. According to government whip Barry Padarath, ministers are already dipping into their own pockets to provide food and beverages to staff at ministerial Christmas functions.

Such generosity should be matched by members of the public, those who can, who should follow this example and heed Archbishop Gordon’s call.

“Society is experiencing pain from poverty like we’ve not seen for a while,” the archbishop said at a Living Water Community mass on December 14. “If you could sponsor one or two lunches for poor families, that would go a long way.”