MTN Foundation has spent over N25bn to impact Nigerian communities —Odunayo

MTN Foundation’s Executive Secretary, Odunayo Sanya, has restated the foundation’s commitment to meaningful and sustainable social investment in Nigeria. She reeled out the foundation’s key achievements, including value of finances invested, scale of projects launched and number of communities impacted.

Odunayo revealed that the foundation had spent over 25 billion Naira on a variety of initiatives since its inception in 2004.

She made the disclosures when she visited the 2023 Fellows of the MTN Media Innovation Programme (MIP) at Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos. During her visit, she gave an overview of the foundation— its initiatives and achievements.

She stated that the foundation was MTN Nigeria’s social impact vehicle, one that demonstrated the company’s commitment to Nigeria and reflected its status as a corporation which was much more than profit.

Speaking on one of the foundation’s education interventions, she revealed that it had so far awarded over 12000 scholarships for STEM students and blind students.

“Till date, MTN Foundation has given over 12000 scholarships to students across public tertiary institutions in all the 36 states in Nigeria. The MTN scholarship scheme is for blind students, as well as excellent students in Science and Technology and Maths programmes such as Engineering, Computer science, Robotics Chemistry and so on.

“To get this scholarship, students in tertiary institutions are to have and maintain a CGPA of 3.5. There are also about 400 scholarships for blind Nigerian students. The scholarship for blind students is not limited to only students offering the STEM programme. The Foundation also provides internship opportunities for students under their scholarship programme to make sure that these students are well-rounded.

“Another amazing scholarship the foundation introduced during COVID-19 is to give scholarships to the top 10 UTME students in any public tertiary institutions of their choice but they still have to also maintain a CGPA of 3.5”, she revealed.

She also spoke about the foundation’s ICT and Business Skills Training Programme. “The foundation uses verifiable data to identify states with high levels of unemployed youth and then organize ICT and digital skill training which encompasses entrepreneur training, digital training and how to use technology and digital skills to elevate your business”, she stated.

“About 3000 people are trained every year and a new twist was added to the programme last year to encourage youths to do better. This year, the top 300 youths will be rewarded with equipment worth $300,000 and the training is in partnership with Meta, Microsoft and Google”, she added.

On the foundation’s development intervention in secondary schools, she mentioned the remodeling of ICT and science laboratories in secondary schools across Nigeria. She stated that so far, MTN Foundation had set up 102 ICT labs and had deployed over 600 computer devices.

“The foundation also focuses on science labs remodelling because we want to get as many young people as possible into studying STEM. The foundation prioritizes female schools although they have established several labs in mixed schools.

“The foundation provides solar batteries, furniture, solar-powered borehole, practical equipment and also trains the teachers to make sure the students get the proper learning they should. The foundation has remodelled 82 science labs across 26 schools”, she stated.

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Odunayo discussed the challenged primary healthcare sector in Nigeria and the foundation’s response. She said the foundation had upgraded 178 Primary Health Care Centres across Nigeria. “MTN has upgraded 178 primary health care centres across all the states in Nigeria including the FCT. The upgrade consists of civil works which includes, the health care centre getting a solar-powered borehole, alternative power (solar and battery), equipment which includes incubators, beds, stethoscope, blood pressure monitors and so on”, she said.

“This year, the foundation partnered with the Private Sector Health care Alliance of Nigeria, and they have helped in training, monitoring, and evaluating health care center staff”, she added.

She also pointed out that Nigerians were given the opportunity to nominate primary health care centres in their communities to be shortlisted for intervention, a move she said was geared towards facilitating inclusion and people-led monitoring.

Odunayo concluded by sharing insights into the foundation’s Y’ellopreneur Programme for Female Entrepreneurs.

“MTN partnered with Enterprise Development Centre to come up with a curriculum fully funded by MTN to train female entrepreneurs. At the end of the program each woman would be able to create a business plan that can be presented to any company.

“The programme set out to train 500 women across diverse sectors, including Agriculture, Fashion, Manufacturing, among others. Last year, 463 women completed the training, 182 women pitched for the equipment loan and 101 qualified for the loan”, she stated.

From information gleaned from its website, the MTN Foundation has undertaken several other projects such as the Y’ello Doctor mobile medical scheme, MTN MUSON music scholars’ programme and Back-to-School initiative. Since its inception, the foundation has invested N24.23 billion in projects across all the states in Nigeria, and the FCT. Overall, it has embarked on 1017 projects and has successfully reached 3319 communities across the country.

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