By: Fred Yaw Sarpong
As part of celebrating its 10 years of operations in Ghana, the Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) Ghana Foundation, is planning to offer scholarship to 300 tertiary students in the country.
The scholarship scheme packages will be awarded to 300 students in a period of three years across the country. Every year, 100 students are expected to benefit from the scheme.
According to the MTN, the scheme will help takes burdens from the students who will have the opportunity to be selected to benefit from the scholarship.
At a breakfast meeting with the members of Journalist for Business Advocacy (JBA) in Accra, Gina Asare Fiagbenu, Senior Manager in charge of Sustainability and Social Impact at MTN Ghana explained that in January, 2018, the foundation will officially launch the scholarship scheme by announcing the criteria’s.
The meeting was to brief JBA members the activities of the foundation for the past 10 years and also to know their plans from 2018.
She told the Daily Express that MTN Ghana Foundation has approved the funds to support the scholarship project.
“The packages will specifically be available to students in the public universities and it is expected to cover the cost of full tuition, accommodation and books.
The leading mobile network operator will publish the criteria in the dailies. However, the foundation will consider women into science, those in the art sector, people with disability and among others.
She further stated that the foundation focuses on education, health and economic empowerment. For the past 10 years, the foundation has champion about 142 projects across the country.
These includes 80 projects in the educational sector focuses on ICTs, dormitories, classrooms, scholarships, youth development and leadership; 52 projects in the health sector focuses on hospitals, wards, maternity blocks, surgeries, equipment to CHPs compounds while the foundation has supported 10 projects in area of economic empowerment focuses on micro enterprises, ICT incubation, women into Shea Butter, women into oil palm, KNUST Telecom Funding and among others.
For the 10 year period, MTN Ghana Foundation has spent over US$13.5 million to improve the life of Ghanaians.
The President of JBA, Suleiman Mustapha urged the Ghanaian journalists to develop interest in promoting small businesses in the country. “We have a mandate as media journalists to advocate the activities of the lesser known businesses in the country.”
The leader of the telecom sector, MTN has close to about 17,817,273 voice subscriptions as at the end of September, 2017 representing a percentage increase of 0.58% from August 2017’s figure of 17,715,212. MTN’s market share for the month of September was 47.58%.
The Journalists for Business Advocacy is affiliate to the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) and it objective is to equip journalists in the country to promote and advocate for small businesses in the country.
Statistics shows that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute a large number of businesses in the country, hence the need to promote them and advocate their activities.
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