Cash assistance to mothers and young children to resume: military mouthpiece

By Admin 05 Aug 2023

DMG Newsroom
5 August 2023, Sittwe
 
The Maternal and Child Cash Transfer (MCCT) scheme providing cash payments to pregnant women and mothers with children under 2 years old will resume in August and September in Arakan, Chin, Kayah (Karenni), Kayin (Karen) and Shan states, as well as Ayeyarwady Region and the Naga self-administered zone, according to Myawady, a daily newspaper and Myanmar military mouthpiece.
 
The social welfare department will provide 15,000 kyats per month for pregnant women and children under 2 to improve their dietary diversity and for cognitive and physical development, reported Myawady.
 
“The cash payment scheme will be carried out in seven regions [and states]. We started registering them in the social safety net, and we got final lists around the end of July,” said director-general Dr. San San Aye of the social welfare department.
 
The department has urged pregnant women and mothers of children under the age of 2 to register with the administration offices in their respective wards and villages.
 
The cash assistance is issued monthly or once every three months at township health departments, but beneficiaries said the scheme ceased without explanation in mid-2022 in Arakan State’s Mrauk-U, Kyaukphyu, Pauktaw and Kyauktaw townships.
 
Administrator U Kyaw Tin of Shwekyinpyin Village in Mrauk-U Township said: “I am glad that cash payments will be resumed as it will be of some help to pregnant women and mothers at this time when food prices are high. They are expecting the cash payment.”
 
Daw Htwe Htwe from the Nyaungchaung displacement camp in Kyauktaw said she would be able to buy vitamin supplements for her children if she gets the monthly cash payments.
 
The MCCT scheme was launched in 2017 in areas where poverty and malnutrition are high. It was first implemented in Chin State, before being expanded to the Naga Self-Administered Zone and Arakan State.