MTN Ghana Foundation invests $13 million in Corporate Social Responsibility

MTN Ghana Foundation, the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of MTN, has invested over 13 million dollars in building school blocks, libraries and Information Communication Technology Centres around the country in the last 10 years.

The investment is to enhance teaching capabilities, constructing and equipping hospital wards, paying tuition and supporting entrepreneurship. Professor Franklin Manu, the Board Chairman MTN Ghana Foundation, said that at the launch of its 10th anniversary to celebrate a decade of transforming and improving the wellbeing of communities across Ghana.

The celebration is on the theme: “Celebrating Ten years of Brightening lives, inspiring a brighter future.”

He said these achievements were outstanding and in recognition of this, the MTN Ghana Foundation has been rewarded by several institutions. He said indeed it has a been a decade of great transformations and improved wellbeing for the communities they have touched spanning the North, South, East and West of Ghana.

He said as the company leads in the transformation of Ghana’s telecommunications sector, the Foundation was expected to continue to provide leadership in the communities and would ensure that the impact was felt in all spheres of life.

Pro Manu said through the interventions of the MTN Ghana Foundation, more people in rural as well as urban communities now have access to improved healthcare and in the same vein, thousands of expectant mothers now deliver in comfortable hospitals that we have refurbished or constructed.

“The newly constructed maternity unit of the Tema General Hospital which would be opening soon is a classic example,” he said.

He said these interventions have saved many lives in remote and urban communities in Ghana and all of this made possible from funds generated from a network “we consistently strive to enhance and expand.”

"My colleagues and I will continue to search, innovate and implement strategies and projects that will brighten lives ‘everywhere we go’,” he added.

The Board Chairman said “We have not just invested financial resources; we have also invested quality time and made a lot of sacrifices to make lives better.”

He said their “Save a life campaign” which organizes the annual blood donation exercise was introduced to help address the perennial blood shortage at the National Blood Bank and other regional hospitals.

The campaign has since then, collected over 6,000 pints of blood.

Mrs Georgina Asare Fiagbenu, Executive Secretary of the Foundation, said as part of activities to celebrate the anniversary, which was to end in March 2018, the Foundation has put together both internal and external events.

The activities include economic empowerment day, education day, staff volunteering day, community-driven corporate social responsibility in MTN’s three business districts and a visit to the Borstal Home.

She said the Foundation would also be embarking on some projects to mark the anniversary like partnering with ‘Operation Smile’ to help people, who have congenital disabilities and would need some surgery, put up an oil palm production centre in the Ashanti Region and give 300 scholarship to students.