The African Women's Association offered FCFA 12 million in support recently in Yaounde.

Several orphans, vulnerable children, poor families and community-based organisations have received assistance worth over FCFA 12 million from the civil society organisation, African Women's Association, AWA, to help boost the fight against poverty.

The multiform assistance was distributed in a ceremony that took place on Friday August 17 at the premises of the Yaounde I Social Centre located in the Centre Regional Delegation of Social Affairs. The donation included cash gifts to 18 needy families, seven scholarships for professional training, 14 gifts in kind to 15 children aged less than three years, 125 school items and 120 medical care registration with community health schemes.

Speaking at the ceremony, the President of AWA, Marie Mathilde Manga, said the assistance was part of the association's Orphaned and Vulnerable Children's Programme (PEVO). Funding came from CORDAID of Holland. The representative of the Divisional Officer for Yaounde 1, Yvette Belinga, called on the beneficiaries to put the gifts to good use.

PEVO aims at strengthening the income-generating capacity of needy families to improve their living standards. It also provides nutritional, medical, psychological, educational and professional assistance to vulnerable children; especially those whose parents died of HIV/AIDS. PEVO was set up by AWA to contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goal on the reduction of extreme poverty in society.