Firm plans over N1b CSR investment

As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility efforts, MTN Foundation has said that it would be investing about a N1billion to upgrade not fewer than 40 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across the country under its ‘What We Can Do Together Initiative’.

The project, in its fifth phase, is urging members of the public to nominate PHCs in various communities that are in need of an upgrade.

The nominations will close on June 17, and there are two ways participants can nominate projects in the communities. These are via SMS and on the web. Participants using SMS can start by texting MTN to 421. The SMS platform is free for MTN subscribers. However, participants who have used their number on the SMS platform would not be able to use it on the web platform. This is to avoid duplication of nominations.

The community-based projects, which began in September 2015, have been successfully implemented in 586 communities across 530 local government areas (LGAs), under four phases.

According to the Executive Secretary, MTN Foundation, Mrs Odunayo Sanya, MTN Foundation does not assume that it knows what a community wants as many corporate bodies that have assumed they knew what a community needed at a point in time had built projects that ended up with little or no impact on the people.

At the unveiling of the project, in Lagos, Sanya said there are 30,000 PHCs in Nigeria, adding that less than 25 per cent of them are functioning.

From inception to date, Sanya said that MTN Foundation has invested about N25 billion in different projects, adding that, for the fifth phase of the project, the Foundation will be investing over N1 billion to ensure that Nigerians at the community level, have access to quality healthcare services.

She called on more corporate organisations to come into the space. “As we are doing this to impact lives, we are creating a playbook for others to come in as well. We are remodeling 40 PHCs today; another organisation can also come in by remodeling like 100 PHCs. In doing so, we will be making more impacts,” she stated.

Adetutu Ajibodu, CEO of Cece Yara Foundation, who has engaged many families at the community level says there is no success without the engagement of the community.

“Carrying them along helps to own the initiative. MTN cannot be in a community forever. Cece Yara is big on collaboration. By gaining access to these communities we are able to help more people,” Ajibodu said.