Airtel to build dam for Zimuopare community

Airtel Ghana, the fastest growing mobile company in Ghana, is to provide technical advice and material support for the construction of a dam for Zimoupare in the Nandom District of the Upper West Region.

The dam that used to serve the people of Zimuopare, a subsistence farming community, was built in the 1950s through the collective efforts of the people but it collapsed in 2000.

A statement issued by Airtel in Accra on Tuesday said a new dam built without any technical assistance by the people had deteriorated and stored little water.

It said as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Initiative, Touching Lives, Airtel Ghana made the commitment when Mr Sylvester Zakpalah-Dere Angwanonenoah, a retired teacher and citizen of the village, nominated Zimuopare as a community needing support to make life easier for them.

Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs of Airtel Ghana, Donald Gwira said, “Our team visited the area after Mr Angwanonenoah’s letter. We realised among other things that the youth of the area were prepared to stay around and engage in farming only if they had water in the dam to irrigate with, and Airtel being a youth-focused brand we felt we should extend a helping hand to them and through this help reverse the trend of rural-urban migration.”

Mr Gwira did not disclose the financial cost of Airtel’s support for the construction of the dam explaining that “The concept of Touching Lives and indeed Airtel Ghana’s CSR initiative is to look at making a sustainable impact in the lives of people and to us we cannot cost the relieve we bring to our beneficiaries and the communities we support”.

When completed, the dam will help provide water for household use and for livestock, provide a source of water for the youth to go into dry season farming thus averting migration down south, provide fish to improve the protein intake of the people and also contribute to increasing the incomes of the people of Zimuopare.

Airtel’s Touching Lives is currently showing on Metro TV, TV3, TV Africa, Viasat 1 and Adom TV on Multi TV throughout the week.**