The Government’s Solidarity Programme, which is targeting 50,000 vulnerable Jamaicans for a cash grant of $20,000, is being used to bring these persons inside the safety net of social protection.

Speaking with JIS News during the first Solidarity Live Community Engagement session at the Port Maria Anglican Church Hall in St Mary on August 21, Director of Social Security in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Suzette Morris, said that through the $1 billion programme, the ministry is aiming to attach the beneficiaries to its regular social protection programmes.

“The programme was launched in a bid to assist the Ministry in closing some of the gaps in access to social protection services,” Morris said.

She explained that to qualify for Solidarity, persons must not be a beneficiary of the Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH), social pension, the National Insurance Scheme or should not have benefited from the reverse income tax initiative.

The programme seeks to assist persons 60 years and older, persons with disabilities, microbusiness owners who have been affected by disaster in the last 12 months, informal low-income workers, the medically indigent, persons without birth certificates, and young people 18 to 35 who are not employed.

With the Solidarity Live series, which is an islandwide engagement, persons can sign up for Solidarity as well as other services of the Ministry. They can also be referred to other government agencies, such as Tax Administration of Jamaica, the Registrar General’s Department, and the HEART/NSTA Trust at the fair.