MTN foundation to sustain investment in health and education

The MTN Ghana Foundation, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) wing of MTN Ghana, has pledged to sustain its huge investments in health and education as it entered its third year in 2010. Executive Director of the Foundation, Ms. Mawuena Adjo Dumor, announced during an engagement with its stakeholders that for the past two years the foundation had invested close to GHc2.5million on CSR activities, particularly health and education. "We want to assure Ghanaians that we will continue to make huge investments in health and education as we enter our third year," she said. The engagement with stakeholders was to mark the second anniversary of the MTN Ghana Foundation, and was attended by government officials, members of parliament, chiefs, media practitioners and representatives of beneficiary organisations and communities. The MTN Ghana Foundation was launched in November 2007 as an autonomous body to manage the CSR activities of MTN Ghana. The foundation had undertaken two major flagship projects in the health and education sectors. The health flagship project was the refurbishing of the second floor of the Maternity Block of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital at a cost of $600,000 and the education flagship, which is the ongoing for the establishment of 10 MTN Information, Communication and Technology learning centres; one each in selected districts in all 10 regions. Ms. Dumor noted that another project, which had been highly commended was the support given to the Princess Marie Louise Children's Hospital for the construction of an Intensive Care Unit. She said the Foundation had over the past two years, also sustained its support for the Best Teacher Awards scheme by providing a car and insurance cover for the second runner-up each year. "The 21-Day MTN Yello' Care was also another avenue through which MTN staff volunteers led by the top managers left their normal daily work and undertook a number community activities," she said. Mr. Brett Goschen, Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana said it was key part of MTN's strategy to contribute to the welfare and development of communities it operated in. Professor Enyonam Kwawukume, Head of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital noted that due to the refurbishment of the second floor of maternity block it was now possible to allot each expectant mother one delivery room and allow husbands to join their wives and to cut the umbilical cord during delivery. Mr. Samuel Nortey, Head of Finance at Princess Marie Louise Children's Hospital noted that until MTN's intervention the hospital could not take care of malnourished children and transferred emergency cases to Korle Bu. A representative of the Ministry of Health said MTN Foundation's interventions would help Ghana achieve the health goals under the Millennium Development Goals faster, and pledged government's support for the foundation.