FOOD assistance requests made up the largest chunk of the 500 calls made by Lautoka residents to Empower Pacific in the past 13 days.
Chief executive officer Patrick Morgam said most residents were facing difficulties and they had no other option but to call them up and request for assistance.
“We work closely with FRIEND Fiji and the Lautoka Residents and Ratepayers Association and they have assisted some of these families who needed urgent assistance,” Mr Morgam said.
“While we may not be able to assist, our job was to receive calls and direct them to organisations which are assisting Lautoka residents.
“Some even called because they ran out of prescribed medicines and there were no transport to get new medicine.”
Mr Morgam said some calls were referred directly to relevant authorities such as the Ministry of Health and the Fiji Police Force.
Some people, he said, just wanted to talk and discussed the difficulties they were going through and how it had affected them mentally.
“The good thing is that our counsellors get connected to other links that we work with, and since we are limited as well, we can’t literally go out, we have opened up phone services, it is just a matter of everyone working together so that psychosocial and mental health needs are met.”
