— Minister Mustapha urges parents who received ‘Because We Care’ cash grant

PARENTS from the Grove, East Bank Demerara area, on Monday morning, were encouraged to use the funds received from the Government’s ‘Because We Care’ cash grants to enhance their children’s education.

The ongoing initiative forms part of the Government’s overall developmental agenda for Guyana’s education sector.

During a distribution exercise at the Grove Primary School, Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, told parents and guardians that the exercise was one of the many initiatives aimed at improving the lives of citizens and easing the burdens on parents ahead of the new school year. He also encouraged parents to use the monies to enhance their children’s education.

“This is a programme that will enhance every child’s education in this country. It will also help parents and guardians to take care of some of the expenses that they would usually incur for their children to attend school. That is the main focus of the programme. In 2015 when we left office, the programme was discontinued.

“We heard a lot of flimsy excuses, and, as a result of that, for five years parents were not able to benefit from those forms of assistance. As a party, we said when we got back into government, we’d restart the programme. We did not only restart the programme, we also increased the amount of money each child would receive,” Minister Mustapha said.

Minister Mustapha also told those in attendance that since assuming office, the government has been making allocations to the various sectors to benefit all sections of the country.
“Over the last year, the government has been making allocations to assist various sectors. When we assumed office, every household received $25,000 as part of the COVID-19 Relief package. Today, children that are attending public school are receiving $19,000.

“We will continue to make these kinds of critical investments because we see the importance of education in our country’s development. Over the next five years, we will be making 20,000 scholarships available to the eligible Guyanese. We made a number of commitments and today those commitments are being delivered to the people of this country,” Minister Mustapha was quoted by DPI as saying.

Distribution of the government’s ‘Because We Care’ grants commenced on July 15, 2021. The initiative will see each school-aged child in the public school system benefitting from a total of $19,000 that will be used to purchase school uniforms, books, and other materials for school.

Approximately 172,000 learners will benefit from this programme providing a total of $3.2 billion towards children and families across Guyana.