By William J. Mbangula OSHAKATI The Minister of Education, Nangolo Mbumba, and the United States Ambassador Joyce Barr will launch a programme to support orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) at schools in northern Namibia tomorrow. The Press Assistant at the US Embassy Roger Lyners announced this and that some of the beneficiaries would be participating in the launch ceremony. Lyners said OVC Support is providing assistance to various organisations and individuals as a response to the Namibian Government ‘s policies of Medium Term Plan 111 (MTP) and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare Permanent Task Force on OVC’s five-year strategy and the 2005 National Plan of Action. Its assistance is directed at the community and national level to provide care, income-generation and education. On the educational front OVC Support cares about vulnerable children at schools with high numbers of OVC and consequently low School Development Funds per capita to purchase textbooks, school supplies and learning material, to ensure all children have uniforms, make classroom improvements, expand feeding programmes, provide counselling skills and psychological support, establish OVC peer counselling and mentoring utoring programmes. Another assistance comes in the form of providing scholarships to girls who are orphaned or vulnerable to attend and stay in school.