MTN bringing World Cup to communities

The annual MTN 21 days of Y'ello Care Programme concluded on Friday 21 May with employees in high spirits as they reflected with a sense of satisfaction at what they had achieved during the past three weeks.

This programme, now in its fourth year, is a period where MTN employees across the company's 21 operations in Africa and the Middle East participate in the 21 days of Y'ello Care Programme, an MTN initiative aimed at entrenching a culture of volunteerism among all MTN employees, regardless of the position they hold in the company.

This year the programme started on 1 May and ended on 21 May. Eunice Maluleke, Head of MTN SA Foundation, said: “21 Days of Y'ello Care is a programme that seeks to showcase MTN's contribution to corporate social responsibility and to demonstrate MTN employees' selflessness to the communities we operate in. The initiative is a philanthropic drive that is run in addition to the social responsibility projects implemented by the MTN Foundations in various countries, including South Africa.”

MTN employees have been united in helping those disadvantaged individuals in communities across the country through sustainable initiatives and gifts in kind. Employees demonstrated their can-do spirits as they rolled up their sleeves and got down to business. The projects they were involved in include planting vegetable gardens, building and refurbishing soccer pitches, providing soccer gear and equipment, conducting soccer clinics, providing play areas for schools, refurbishing buildings and installing burglar proofing. Depending on the needs, some areas were provided with solar powered geysers and big screen television sets.

This year's theme was soccer - in celebrating the football showpiece that is about to hit our shores but other projects were also not forgotten. One of the objectives has been to assist disadvantaged local communities across South Africa through the support of community-building projects and contribute to the general well being of the society.

“Our objectives remain to continue our efforts to create a better life for poorer communities through sustainable interventions. We want to entrench a culture of volunteerism among our employees at all our offices. There is also the opportunity for our colleagues to get to know each other better outside the work environment, while building closer working relationships between departments, business units and regions.”

“MTN is the first and only African global sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and we want to positively use our sponsorship to support a legacy initiative that will remain on the continent long after the final whistle of the World Cup has been blown,” concluded Maluleke.