In furtherance of its deliberate policy to fight poverty in the Sub-Saharan Africa, Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO) microfinance bank says it has in the past 29 years disbursed the sum of N455.5 billion to owners of micro and small enterprises since inception.
BusinessDay reports that the managing director/chief executive officer of the leading microfinance institution in Nigeria, Godwin Ehigiamusoe made the disclosure during the grand finale of 2016 annual LAPO quiz competition organized for public and private secondary schools in Asaba, Delta State.
Ehigiamusoe represented by Sabina Idowu-Osehobo, executive director, LAPO NGO added that the bank had between January and July 2016 disbursed the sum of N57,945,690,424billion to its current 2.3million across 386 branches in 28 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
He also disclosed that as a pro-poor organization, LAPO also played a major role in addressing HIV/AIDs pandemic in the 1990s and early 2000, currently implementing massive malaria and cancer campaign awareness programme as well as annual rural health outreach in Edo state.
He posited that LAPO was initiated in the late 1980s solely to assist the poor particularly women to break out of the grip of poverty, noting that the financial institution addresses poverty with access to finance, health and social empowerment programmes.
The LAPO boss said the annual quiz competition was initiated in 2006 to enhance students’ understanding of science and social science subjects and providing a platform for teachers and students of various schools to exchange ideas and learning competition experiences.
He explained that the maiden edition held in 2006 and won by Ihogbe College, Benin-City out of the participated 18 public and private secondary schools in Edo State said the competition was however extended to Delta state in 2015 with 160 participated schools drawn from Edo and Delta states.
He further explained that in the 2016 edition, a total of 244 secondary schools from the two states participated in the competition and six partook in the grand finale.
At end of the keenly contested competition University Preparatory Secondary School (UPSS), Benin- City emerged overall winner defeated Challenge Academy, Udu and Delta Steel Company Technical High School to second and third positions respectively.
University Preparatory Secondary School in the 2015 edition was defeated by Lumen Christi International High School, Uromi, Edo state to a second place.
The overall winning school was presented with the prestigious LAPO trophy and other prizes such as science laboratory equipment.
Other schools that partook at the grand finale are Federal College of Education (Technical) Demonstration Secondary School, Lumen Christi International High School, Uromi and Federal Science and Technical College, Uromi, Edo state
The students were tested on English- Language, Biology, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics.
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