By Sandra Alumona
As part of her corporate social
responsibility, the Lift above Poverty
Organisation (LAPO) recently held its
annual nationwide qualifying scholarship
examination.
The examination is used every academic
year by the LAPO scholarship board as a
fair and balanced methodology of
selecting numerous clients’ children
across 15 designated regions nationwide
and had 1,555 children of LAPO clients
who sat and wrote the examination from
347 branches.
According to the Managing Director,
LAPO, Mr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe, the
scholarship scheme was instituted in
2007 with the cash prize of $10,000 that
came with its Grameen foundation
awards for excellence in micro-finance
in 2006 and the process is aimed at the
secondary school category only, as the
board will make use of the JAMB scores
for University qualification.
Ehigiamusoe expressed concern that
students usually drop out of school
especially at the secondary level due to
poverty, adding that the need for
continuity in the beneficiaries’
educational advancement necessitated
the scheme’s extension to the university
level.
He added that LAPO greatly recognises
the fact that education is an instrument
of economic empowerment and national
development to ensure a brighter and
successful life for poor children.
Manager, corporate affairs department
and secretary to LAPO scholarship
scheme, Mrs. Osayi Itohan, in her
speech, said LAPO believes that it is her
corporate responsibility to care for the
educational needs of the children of her
clients.
She further explained that it is part of
the benefits that the children of the
clients enjoy.
“We believe that both the poor and the
rich deserve education and this
scholarship scheme allows them to run a
business with the loan we give them and
make profit that would go a longer way
without having them worry about how to
manage their profit in funding their
children’s education.
“The cumulative number of beneficiaries
under the LAPO scholarship scheme as
at 2013 was 1,442 students for
secondary school students and 40 for
university students, with over N65
million disbursed so far for the
beneficiaries and the numbers have
progressively increased in each year”,
she added.


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