Govt to unveil initiative for needy children

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 14:45:50 +0000

By KALOBWE BWALYA

GOVERENMENT has structured a programme for the vulnerable children in urban areas called Saving Effectively and Efficiently Vulnerable Children and Adolescents, says Community Development and Social Warfare Minister Emerine Kabanshi.

Ms Kabanshi said vulnerable children would be put on social cash transfer because they had been neglected by their families, especially the orphans and that US$10 million would be spent on the programme.

She explained that 100 children would be targeted from the Copperbelt and Lusaka provinces for the programme.

Speaking during the PF interactive forum in Lusaka yesterday, Ms Kabanshi said the programme would also benefit street kids and who would later be reintegrated into their families as they deserved respect and a decent life.

Ms Kabanshi said there was need for children to enjoy parental love and not from an institution or the streets.

“I will be launching the programme in Mufulira and will target 100 children from both the Copperbelt and Lusaka Provinces because the PF Government is a pro-poor Government. My ministry has put in place various programmes aimed at uplifting the standards of vulnerable people especially women and children,” said Ms Kabanshi.

Ms Kabanshi reiterated that Government had since increased the number of people on social cash transfer from 150 to 700,000 under the 2018 programme.

Ms Kabanshi said Government was determined to end inter-generational poverty affecting most citizens, adding that President Edgar Lungu had restored dignity to most marginalised people in society through the provision of social cash transfer.

Ms Kabanshi said the empowerment initiatives that Government had embarked on had given birth to other social protection programmes that had in turn helped to reduce gender-based violence (GBV), early marriages and general poverty among the rural population.

She said physically challenged people were also benefiting from the programme.

Ms Kabanshi said the empowerment of vulnerable women would bring about economic development and dismissed claims by some opposition parties that the PF was segregative in its empowerment programmes.

“Women are the ones who can bring about change and this is why over 400, 000 women have since been empowered under the social cash transfer programme to date and this is why 75,000 women in 51 districts are set for empowerment across the country.

“We are going to train them in entrepreneurship skills, mentor them in different entrepreneurship programmes identified by them and afterwards give each one K2000 as capital for their business,“ she said