Vulnerable And Excluded

Women, children and physically challenged in the Municipality have been neglected over the year. But in recent times the Municipal Assembly in line with new government policies has drawn a programme of activities to improve the living conditions these groups.

Activities included the registration of all vulnerable and the excluded in the municipality to develop a reliable database on them with employable skills through training, facilitating the formation of women’s groups, establishment of micro credit scheme for the vulnerable, assisting women groups with soft loans and advocating for disabled friendly public building in the municipality.

An evaluation of the level of implementation of the above indicates that attempts have been made to develop a data base on the Physically Challenged in the municipality, and need assessment was carried out. A credit scheme has also been established for physically challenge and various amounts disbursed to the a number of individual and Associations to undertake income generation ventures.

The Assembly also disbursed the credit to a number of individual women and women groups from the Credit scheme established by the Ministry for Women and Children Affairs.

However only a handful of people in these categories have benefited from these credit schemes to due to lack of accurate data on them. There is therefore the need to update records on the vulnerable and excluded in order to mainstream their needs into the

Development activities of the Municipality.

The literacy rate in the Birim Central Municipal is 86% and is by far higher than the national average of 49%. This can be attributed to the cluster of first cycle educational institutions in the municipality. There are 85 nursery and kindergartens of which 66 are public and 19 private.

The municipality has 156 primary schools of which 14 are privately owned, while there are 86 junior secondary schools. There are senior secondary schools in the municipality and a Community Health Nursing Training Institute at Akim Oda.