FIVE thousand households with Orphaned Vulnerable Children (OVC) in the Northern Region have been supported with GH¢150,000.
The facility was provided under the Emergency Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme.
The beneficiaries are located in the East Gonja, West Gonja, East Mamprusi, West Mamprusi and Sawla-Kalba-Tuna districts.
The programme was aimed, among other objectives, at providing relief to worst affected households during the 2009 floods.
The Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Mr John Ankrah who made this known to the Daily Graphic in Tamale, stated that each household was given GH¢30.
According to him, 25 communities benefited from the programme.
Mr Ankrah explained that the LEAP programme was meant to complement the existing pro-poor government intervention by catering for the basic needs of the vulnerable and less fortunate people in the society.
“The LEAP has additionally been designed to respond to emergency situations by providing livelihood support to households made vulnerable by natural or manmade disasters,” he stated.
Mr Ankrah said in natural and man-made disasters such as floods in northern Ghana, poor households for instance became even more vulnerable and sank deeper into poverty.
He said the effects of those problems were not far-fetched as the victims lost the opportunity to bounce back from those shocking disasters.
“Unless the government seriously deals with vulnerability, in parallel to promoting economic growth, poverty would not be reduced; the role of social protection is to assist people to get out of poverty and cope better with risk,” the director stressed.
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