MTN SA empowers Eastern Cape community with R27m investment

As part of its commitment to empowering people from rural communities with the skills and tools needed to drive their businesses, the MTN SA Foundation has announced a R9 million investment into the Eastern Cape, with an additional R18 million committed to the area over the next two years.

“It is our duty as corporate citizens of this country to at least provide South Africans who still live in a state of poverty with the tools needed to pull themselves out of this environment, improve their own living standards and rise above what they have, and become who they were intended to be,” says Eunice Maluleke, head of the MTN SA Foundation.

Telecommunications has proved to be a great leveller, providing those in the most remote regions, and in some instances living below the breadline, with access to information through mobile communications.

It is with this that MTN has, through its MTN SA Foundation, embraced a rolling plan to bring access to information to historically disadvantaged people and communities in South Africa.

MTN SA Foundation has embarked on an integrated socio-economic development approach, which seeks to deliver maximum benefit to selected cluster communities in identified areas throughout South Africa.

The MTN SA Foundation announcement is in line with its commitment to being a leader in connecting communities for self-reliance. Education, arts and culture, health and entrepreneurship initiatives are being implemented in municipalities to foster development among the communities.

An entrepreneurial culture is inculcated in schools, as learners are provided with the necessary training through the Entrepreneurship Portfolio.

“State-of-the-art ICT centres not only provide learners in remote rural communities with access to the latest technology, but it offers members of the community with the means to grow and manage their own businesses with vital skills and solutions. After all, the infrastructure and capacity built around schools is intended to benefit the entire community, the members of which all have access to the facilities at the schools,” says Maluleke.

In keeping with the Foundation's whole community focus, entrepreneurship benefits all community members, including school-going youth who are exposed to entrepreneurial opportunities and the local community who have access to business support and multimedia centres. In 2009, the MTN SA Foundation has invested in excess of R56 million in community projects.