PHILIPSBURG–Prime Minister Rafael Boasman gave an insight on Wednesday into some of the “early recovery projects” that will be funded with the seven million euros that the Dutch Government will be providing.
Speaking during the weekly Council of Ministers press briefing, Boasman said the projects that would be financed by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in St. Maarten would include an elderly home repair project that will be executed by the St. Maarten Development Fund (SMDF). Some 2.5 million euros would be allocated towards this project, which is expected to run from January 2018 to June 2018.
Another project will be executed by the White and Yellow Cross Care Foundation and will include repair of 45 homes of the foundation’s clients. Boasman said the White and Yellow Cross is aware of the locations where its clients live through its District Nursing programme and has identified those whose homes were damaged during the passage of Hurricane Irma and to what extent.
The Foundation will also look at unemployed persons in the hospitality industry with a view of retraining them to become level 1 Care Assistants. Boasman called this “a very interesting and good project.”
An amount of 980,000 euros from the early recovery fund will be made available for projects to be executed by the White and Yellow Cross Care Foundation.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has targeted about 500 households for repair activities, he added. An amount of 2.2 million euros will be made available for this project, which will run January to June 2018. Boasman said the projects should kick off in January once the details have been ironed out. This will help alleviate the burden of the persons in the most vulnerable situations who are in need of assistance, he said.
The early recovery projects are being financed with seven million euros that will be made available by the Dutch government. Boasman said also that the Netherlands had informed the World Bank via letter of its intention to set up a Trust Fund related to granting St. Maarten the 550 million euros recovery aid and now that “the official kick-off has taken place,” St. Maarten would send a request to the World Bank by today, Thursday.
“It is expected that this request would go out and then (it) would have the ball rolling to get things started,” Boasman said.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/72235-home-repair-retraining-part-of-early-recovery-projects
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