Barbados stands in need of a National Food Bank, which could serve as a central hub from which food supplies are distributed not only to organisations in need, but to needy citizens as well.
Kemar Saffrey, Founder and President of the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness, made the above suggestion recently, while sharing a number of initiatives he believes can be utilised to aid the country in better handling the present COVID-19 pandemic.
“We need to introduce a system where persons can be given food in a systematic way. We need to look at having a National Food Bank. If you can put all of this in one area and create a warehouse, put in the right refrigerators, etc. and you are able then to have a systematic approach where organisations, or where people can come and say, I need food, can I get this or that and you are able to use that food bank to pull together food for people, that is what you may need – a more systematic approach to the distribution of food,” Saffrey indicated.
Noting that at one point in time his organisation for example had an abundance of food and had to find ways to share it, he noted that having a food bank where food could also be sent to benefit others, would help.
“So what we can do is have that food and parcel it and send it to people and that way, people would be able to benefit from it in a better way. Not just organisations, but people who need it as well. You can write down their names [so there is no duplication] and you can ensure that other persons get food, rather than the same persons all the time. I think that’s the way we have to approach it, in a more co-ordinated manner,” Saffrey maintained.
He meanwhile stressed, “I think that Barbadians generally [engage] in ad hoc behaviour, instead of running a systematic process. While we do live in a country full of systems, we do not live in a country full of system enforcement. So there are proper systems, but they are not enforced, so people behave as if there are no systems in place. But if systems are enforced, people will have to abide by what is in place and this lends to a smoother process for how things can be done.” (RSM)