First salaries paid to grandmothers for childcare in pilot project

ANKARA

Grandmothers who look after their grandchildren while the parents of the latter are at work were given their first salaries as part of a pilot project on April 14. 

In the framework of the project, a total of 5,735 grandmothers, who completed the required procedures, were paid their first installment, officials told Anadolu Agency. 

Grandmothers will be paid 425 Turkish Liras ($116) a month for their grandchildren who are younger than 3 years old and are under their care. 

The pilot project, which covers a total of 10 provinces in the initial stage, will last 12 months. 

Some 6,500 families will benefit from the financial support in the initial stage and new families will be added if the project is successful. 

A childcare at home project was launched in 2015 with the support of the European Union. The project, which was first started in the provinces of İzmir, Antalya and Bursa with the inclusion of 6,000 women, was extended to Istanbul and Ankara in 2016. The project aims to reach out to 5,000 women in the two cities. Mothers who have children younger than 2 years of age but who have to return to work, are paid 320 euros to employ caregivers as part of the project, which is expected to end in the third quarter of 2017. One eligibility condition for the program is that the caregiver is not a grandmother of the child.