A total number of 175 vulnerable children in four communities have received a mount of 1,184 Ghana Cedis under the Livelihood empowerment against poverty (LEAP) programme in the Agona District of the Central Region. The communities are Domokyi, Egya Ebusua, Duabone and Namanwora. The care givers of the households received an amount of 16 Ghana cedis each for two months. The money would be used to promote an integrated social development programme through public-private partnership and to provide social grants support to supplement subsistence needs of the extremely poor. The programme embarked upon by the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment was to empower deprived people in the district as well as fulfil Ghana’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS11). Mr. Ben Mensah, Agona West Municipal Chief Executive, who made the presentation at Domokyi and Egya Ebusua respectively, advised the care givers to utilize the money wisely on children to ensure their standard of living is enhanced. Mr. Mensah, who is also chairman of the LEAP Committee stressed that the money given was to provide basic needs for the children to ensure that they have access to existing government interventions in the District. He advised them to send their children, especially girls to school and assured them that the Municipal Assembly would assist them to construct Early Childhood Development Centre and urged the people to take the initiative. Miss Monica Siaw, Agona West Municipal Director of Social Welfare, gave the assurance that those who did not benefit in the first phase would be captured in the second phase which would start in two months’ time. The money was disbursed by officials from the Ghana Post Company and supervised by officials from the Headquarters of the Department of Social Welfare. Source: GNA