Odumase-Krobo [E/R], Oct. 20, GNA - The World Bank has provided 17,000 Ghana cedis to be used as motivation package for 85 facilitators or volunteer teachers who have, within 21 months, passed 2,361 learners under their watch in the Lower Manya Krobo District. The amount forms part of the bank's support to the functional literary programmes of the district. At a ceremony to hand over the incentive packages to the beneficiaries at Odumase Krobo the District Chief Executive, Mr David Sackitey Asare, hailed the effort of the bank in helping the uneducated to acquire the rubrics of literacy and arithmetic.

Mr Asare said the functional literacy programme had proved to be a genuine programme in eradicating poverty, ignorance and squalor and called for further support for the project so that it could expand its services to a larger section of the populace. He appealed to the facilitators to help in tackling sexually-transmitted ailments since their teaching methods have been found to be effective in rousing the people in support of development programmes.

He appealed to facilitators to consider developing primers that might help their learners appreciate the importance of the National Health Insurance Scheme, the scourge of HIV and the need to de-emphasize certain cultural practices such as those that expose widows to danger. Mr Christopher Adai Kordei, Eastern Regional Director of the Non-Formal Education Division of the Ministry of Education (NFED), said he was happy about the cooperation his outfit is enjoying from church organizations.

The Lower Manya District Coordinator of the NFED, Mr Emmanuel Anyanumeh, called for a much broader support for National Functional Literacy Project in order to help under-privileged persons become literate. He handed over one packet of roofing sheets to each of the 85 beneficiaries and asked them to be inspired by the incentive to work harder in the service of the underprivileged.