Govt preparing Rp1.3 trillion for family of hope program

Antara News, Sunday, November 8, 2009 15:53 WIB

Yoyakarta (ANTARA News) - The government through the Ministry of Social Affairs is preparing a fund of Rp1.3 trillion to finance a Family of Hope Program (PKH) in 2010, a cabinet minister said.

"The funds are being prepared for 720,000 selected poor families. These families have to meet the condition before they could receive the assistance," Social Affairs Minister Salim Segaf Al Jufri said here on Sunday.

The minister said that the PKH program was part of the government`s efforts to reduce the number of poor people to 8-10 percent in the coming five years from 14-15 percent at present.

The PKH program is a scheme in which the government provides a cash to a very poor family (RTSM) based on certain categories in an effort to develop the country`s human resources in the field of education and health.

The target of the PKH program is an RSTM which has at least one family member at age between 0 and 15 years, or an expectant mother in selected region.

"The recipient of this program must be a mother or a women who is taking care of a child in the family concerned. This is intended to empower women," the minister said.

He said that the would-be recipients must sign an agreement which specified that they should sent children of 7-15 years to schools, or children of 16-18 years who had not yet finished their nine-year basic education.

Besides, they had also take children of 0-6 years to health care centers based on the health care procedures. Those who were pregnant were expected to check their health regularly based on the PKH procedures.

The minister said that the program had been carried out in a number of countries such as in Latin American nations. In Indonesia it had been started in 2007 and was expected to continue until 2015.