Children of overseas Sri Lankan workers enrolled in registered daycare centres will receive a Rs. 10,000 monthly allowance under a new programme being rolled out by the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, officials told the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Women and Child Affairs on Tuesday, Newswire reported.
The scheme is targeted at children aged two to 13 whose parents are employed abroad, provided the child is enrolled in a registered daycare facility. Approvals are in the final stages, and payments are expected to be channelled monthly through District Secretariat offices directly to the registered daycare centres rather than to families, officials said at the committee meeting chaired by Women and Child Affairs Minister Saroja Savithri Paulraj, with Deputy Minister Namal Sudarshana also in attendance.
Minister Paulraj called for awareness programmes to publicise the scheme, describing it as a positive step to support the families of the country’s overseas workforce. Sri Lanka has long depended on the remittances of migrant workers — predominantly in West Asian states — as a critical foreign-exchange and household-income stream, but childcare for left-behind children has remained a persistent welfare gap.
The same committee meeting also touched on female police recruitment, with officials reporting that applications had been called for 50 female sub-inspector posts.
Source: Newswire.
