MTN Nigeria’s CSR Initiative International Nomination
2006-01-18 14:28:34 | Viewed 546 times
The Rural Telephone Project of the MTN Nigeria Foundation has been short listed for the 2006 GSM Association award in the category of Best Mobile Community Service. The Community Service Award recognizes and applauds those who work in the background of the mobile telecommunications industry or apply the mobile wireless technology in a unique way for the benefit of their local community or the community at large. Winners will be announced at a Gala evening scheduled to take place as part of the 3GSM World congress in Barcelona, Spain on Tuesday 14th February 2006.
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The GSM Association's 3GSM World Congress is the world's biggest mobile communications conference and exhibition. The event which attracted 34,000 visitors from more than 171 countries in 2005, has become the most coveted in the mobile industry, with the objective of recognizing achievements and celebrating excellence. According to MTN’s Corporate Service Executive, Mrs Amina Oyagbola, “we are very pleased that our contribution to improving the quality of life of Nigerians is beginning to yield positive results in the lives of the people and is even earning us international recognition”. |
She disclosed that “MTN is very determined to help empower Nigerians through access to microcredit, skills acquisition, employment creation and capacity building.”
The MTN Rural telephone project is a micro finance scheme whereby rural women in Nigeria, referred to as “Phone Ladies” are loaned money through microfinance institutions to operate call centres in their communities. The telephone project is aimed at impacting positively the lives of Nigerians at the community level. “It is to help accelerate the standard of living in rural communities by providing a tangible means of livelihood for our rural women, as well as bridge the communication gap between them and the outside world”.
The pilot phase of the Rural Telephone project, tagged the Ogene Project was launched at the Ofubi Africa Centre, Enugu on April 12, 2002. The project, which kicked off with 5 beneficiaries is steadily gaining ground and acceptability and has been replicated in over 30 communities in Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Edo and Kwara states of Nigeria.
“That is why the MTN is working very hard to ensure that barriers to communication are broken”, Oyagbola enthused, adding that with this initiative a growing number of Nigerians located in rural communities are now reaping the benefits of Nigeria’s telecommunications revolution.
Since inception in 2001, MTN Nigeria has set the pace in the area of corporate social responsibility. The organization has intervened in several instances, and provided succour to inviduals, displaced persons, public institutions and the public at large, culminating in the establishment of the MTN Nigeria Foundation in July 2004, to spearhead the company’s corporate social responsibility agenda. The MTN Foundation has as its core, improving the lives of ordinary Nigerians through a trifocal intervention in the areas of education, Health and economic empowerment.
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