00:00So I'm Jean Ambrose, a member of Royal Philanthropic No. 405 Lodge of the English Constitution of Freemasons.
00:09I'm David Lumsden. I am a District Grand Officer representing the District Landlords of Trinidad and Tobago.
00:16And in this discussion today, I guess we represent the Masonic fraternity in Trinidad and Tobago.
00:21TV6 News visited them on Sunday as they continued a joint relief drive with the Jamaica Diaspora Global Council.
00:29Collecting much needed supplies for those affected by Hurricane Melissa, the Category 5 storm that devastated Jamaica last week.
00:38It was a little slow starting off. We know what's been going on in the country.
00:43It was a weekend. It was a Friday. We know the traffic, month end.
00:48So people had their own private things to do at home, but it's been coming in steadily from yesterday afternoon into today,
00:56where we'll be packing up what we received here from donations from the public as well as our members
01:02and be taking it to the UPS Limited Warehouse in Fernandez Compound.
01:07Mr. Lumsden and Glenn Rye McIntosh, the Jamaica Diaspora Global Council representative in the Caribbean,
01:14gave TV6 News further details.
01:16Yes, we have also partnered with another person who is facilitating the transport between UPS Warehouse to the Point Leases and all for free.
01:28And this is the importance of strengthening collaboration in times of need.
01:32And we have a brother who is very involved with UPS, who was able to facilitate and assist us in shipping out.
01:40And on this occasion, we have another brother who is also very well connected with the Jamaican High Commission,
01:46who is also guiding us onto the most effective way to transmit funds as well as product via shipping in containers, etc.
01:57So we seem to have it well under control, but we are hoping to get this done very quickly as well.
02:02Mr. Ambrose has said the relief efforts will be an ongoing exercise.
02:06Well, we'd like to thank everybody who's been coming in and donating here at Royal Philanthropic Lodge 4 of 5 in Herbert Street in Sinclair.
02:13We look forward to anybody who wants to come in.
02:15You can contact me. I'm easy to find.
02:18And again, you know, if you want to bring in things, cases and boxes, things that are easy to pack, always better.
02:24No clothes at this point in time.
02:26We do know there's a lot of corporate companies out there in the water environment that have already shipped water.
02:32So we have a lot of water coming in, of course, canned products, food products.
02:37And Mr. McIntosh spoke of the importance of proper channels of donations.
02:41People want to make sure that what they donate gets across to Jamaica.
02:48Thanks for that question.
02:48I would say the work doesn't stop in terms of a first week give.
02:54We firstly encourage that there are official channels in terms of for the monetary donation and support Jamaica, support Jamaica dot org.
03:05There I would like to highlight there are a number of spoofs that are around.
03:09And in this time when we have to be cautious that the official arm of the Jamaica donation can be found in terms of a non-monetary items, that's what we are encouraging and facilitating here.
03:24Mr. Lumsden added that while Jamaica was heavily impacted by Hurricane Melissa, it was not the only country affected and assistance efforts will remain ongoing.
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