Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey says there has been a small increase in the number of people seeking assistance for back-to-school expenses from the Welfare Department. However, the overall number of Barbadians requesting help from the agency has petered off.Speaking to Barbados TODAY on the sidelines of Friday’s launch of a new Clean and Green initiative at Dalkeith Woods “The Grotto” in his St Michael South constituency, Humphrey attributed this to a pick up in economic activity following the disruption triggered by the pandemic.“Over the last two years since COVID started the numbers in the Welfare Department had almost doubled. So, we went from 3 600 or so persons to just over 6 000 persons. But those numbers are not actually increasing at the moment, the numbers are actually coming down because, I think, more people are going back to work as the economy opens.”
