EC to provide €3.9m in aid to needy students

By Evie Andreou

THE green light has been given by the European Commission for Cyprus to utilise €3.9m allocated from the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) for the 2014-2020 to provide school uniforms and bags to needy students.

Launched in January this year, FEAD aims to help EU member states to support their ‘most deprived persons’ with the provision of either basic goods or food or even encourage actions of social integration according to their own situation and preferences.

“The FEAD programme for Cyprus will focus on supporting the most deprived students. Vulnerable children deserve all our support and I am confident that the programme will contribute to give them a fair opportunity to develop their full potential at school,” said Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen.

Adding the national contribution to the scheme, the sum will be around €4.6m and it will be used to cover the needs of deprived students at public schools.

In order to avoid stigmatising the students receiving the aid, multiple providers will be selected through public tenders to allow for a variety of goods from which the students will be able to select.

With a total budget of €3.8bn, FEAD “aims to contribute to meeting the Europe 2020 target of reducing the number of people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion by at least 20 million by 2020,” the Commission said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.