Home Improvement Grants are not just a financial investment but an investment in the future of Trinidad and Tobago.
The statement came from Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister – Communications, Symon de Nobriga, during a distribution of Self Help Grants to residents of Diego Martin Central.
He called on the recipients to be champions and not see the Grants as a gift or charity.
“We are not just improving a house. We are improving a home. We have young people who are here today, children, we are improving the way in which they have to live their own life. We understand that that, that investment is a dollar value but the return on that investment cannot be counted in dollars and cents.”
A total of $300,000 in Home Repair Grants was distributed to residents during the ceremony at the Central Diego Martin Community Centre.
For Menova Kajim of St. Lucien Road, whose kitchen was gutted by fire in 2022, the Grant to repair her roof could not come at a better time, just before the rainy season.
“I am so lucky that I got through without a burn. My roof has gone, the kitchen roof has gone, the electrical work has gone in the house, and part of the house has completely gone at the back.”
Anna Marie Valdez, a single mother of three from Four Roads, had her home affected by a landslide four years ago.
“I have a two-storey house. The main storey is upstairs that I’m presently using. The downstairs, because of the foundation, because of the constant water passing through my yard, we cannot use the downstairs of the house. So right now we praying and asking God that we have no earthquake, we have no major flooding right now because the whole downstairs structure of the house is cracked.”
Chairman of the National Commission for Self Help, Hayden Mitchell, reiterated that the Home Improvement Grant is for the purchase of materials, but the homeowner is responsible for sourcing the labour.
“But I want you all to pay particular attention to the retaining walls because we have retaining walls up Simeon, we have some in Four Roads, we have some from Diego, the retaining walls – please make sure that you can get somebody who could do it properly, because if they don’t do it properly, then they will just be wasting the material.”