Beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), will from tomorrow start receiving their grants in the pilot phase, Frema Opare, Deputy Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, has said. She said Ghana Post will be used in disbursing the grants, which range between GH¢8 and GH¢15 to beneficiaries at pay points, in their respective districts every two months. The Deputy Minister disclosed this when she met with editors in Accra last Friday. Beneficiaries of LEAP are orphaned and vulnerable children, the extremely poor who are above 65 years and persons with severe disabilities without productivity capacity. The five-year pro-gramme which falls under the National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) covers 25,000 households this year. The number is expected to double next year and eventually swell up to 164,370 households by 2012. The objective of the programme is to empower and help the extremely poor to provide for themselves their basic needs and to enable them to access existing government interventions. It is to serve as a "spring board" to help them to "leap" out of the malaise of extreme poverty, and ultimately empower them to contribute to socio-economic development. It is designed to help reduce child labour and also support beneficiaries to engage in sustainable income generating activities. The grants to be disbursed to each beneficiary household, will depend on the number of eligible persons therein. A household of one or two persons will be entitled to GH¢8 per month, while that of three will receive GH¢10 with that of four or more getting GH¢15. Beneficiary households will have to comply with certain conditions, such as enrolment and retaining of all school-going age children in public basic schools, registration of all members of the household with the NHIS and registration of newly born babies with the Births and Deaths Registry. They must also attend post-natal clinics and complete the expanded progra-mme of immunisation as well as ensure that no child in the household is trafficked or engaged in any activity that constitute child labour. Meanwhile, 21 districts have been named as those initially covered under the programme. They include Bawku Municipal, Lawra, Bole, Techiman, Obuasi, Kumasi metropolis and Ketu. Others are Tema, Ga West, Dangbe West, Nze-ma East, Agona Swedru, Assin North, and Cape Coast Municipal. The rest are Kwahu West, Asuogyaman, Fan-teakwa, New Juabeng, Akuapim South, Yilo Krobo and Manya Krobo. Source: The Ghanaian Times