GREATER ACCRA, GHANA (www.goergebritton.com) – A South African multinational and giant mobile telecommunications company, operating in many European, Asian, and African Countries, including Ghana; MTN Group Limited (formerly M-Cell) and MTN Ghana Foundation has launched a laudable initiative which gives their cherished customers the control to choose and contribute to the development of the Ghanaian communities.
Dubbed ‘Brighten Your Community’ an initiative which will empower customers to choose a project they want implemented in a community of their choice via MTN’s social media handles starting 2nd December 2019 to 9th December 2018. Prior to this initiative, MTN Ghana and MTN Ghana Foundation announced this year as the ‘Year of the Customer’.
The ‘Brighten Your Community’ initiative will be heavily driven on MTN’s social media handles, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The Foundation is devoting an amount of GHC750,000 to be invested in the three focus areas of the Foundation which are Education, Health and Economic Empowerment. The three communities which come tops at the end of the competition will be allocated GHC 250,000 each to implement the projects.
The social media campaign will be of three phase and each phase will consist of an online poll which will last for 5days. Voting by region will commence by navigating to the web URL www.brightenAcommunity.com. The second phase will involve voting for the project categories, thus, Education, Economics Empowerment and Health for each of the top 3 regions voting will done via an online poll with the same URL (www.brightenAcommunity.com). The final round of voting will be to select the actual projects for each of the top 3 regions.
The final project will be highlighted on MTN social media pages. The social media audience will lead in determining how much funding each project receives. For each like, comment and share each project receives, the foundation will allocate GHC10 to that project. If the foundation receives 10,00 accumulated reactions for a particular project, the foundation will allocate GHC10 X 10.00 to that particular project, but not exceeding GHC 250,000.
Speaking at the launch of the event that was hosted at the MTN House, Accra, the Senior Manager Corporate Communications at MTN Ghana, Georgina Asare Fiagbenu stated that, the foundation is taking this unique and participatory approach as an innovative brand, to involve their customers and give them the opportunity to directly choosing a project they want implemented in a community of their choice.
She revealed that, ‘Brighten Your Community’ initiative is a national campaign and all MTN customers are eligible to participate. She added that customers are their key stakeholders and have contributed to the successes of MTN, hence the need to invest in the welfare of the communities.
Mrs. Fiagbenu furthur explained, most of the projects the Foundation implements comes from the community and it respond based on its linkage with their focus areas and the impact it will have. However, she added that, this Brighten the region project encourage more participation of more people.
Recaping some achievements of MTN Ghana Foundation, the Senior Manager Corporate Communications revealed that, the Foundation has contributed to the socio-economic development of Ghana through its sustainable initiatives and as a result, they have enhanced and fostered strategic partnerships through collaborations with other national/ international partners.
With 147 projects executed, with an amount of USD 13 million which has impacted over 4 million lives, many people in rural as well as urban communities now have access to improved healthcare, thousands of expectant mothers can now deliver in hospitals close to their communities and many lives have been saved as a result of refurbishment and construction of hospital ward/blocks, donation of critical medical equipment among others.
School children are also beneficiaries. Some schools structures which used to be in dilapidated state have now been refurbished creating comfortable and safe environment for teaching and learning. In addition to supporting with infrastructure, scholarships have been awarded for the education of hundreds of needy but brilliant children and teachers who wish to further their education in Math and Science at the tertiary and Masters Level.
Empowering people economically, MTN supported over 200 palm oil producers with a palm oil processing facility at Juaso in the Ashanti Region. A Shea Butter processing plant was also commissioned for Sung Suma Women’s group at Kpaguri in the Upper West region. These projects among others aimed at improving the lives of the community members. She added that, popular program “Save a life” and the award winning Heroes of Change have all been highly commended as bright, sustainable and impactful projects.
