Multinational telecommunications giant, MTN, has donated 550,000 rand to two health advocacy groups to bolster the global fight against malaria and accelerate children's access to education.
MTN offered 275,000 rand (38,000 dollars) each to the United Against Malaria (UAM) initiative and 1 Goal project, signalling a keen commitment to global-wide efforts to tackle malaria and child basic education issues.
A statement issued in Accra said the donation was a percentage of the entry fee charged at the MTN Fan Zones at Montecasino in Johannesburg and the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town during the just ended World Cup Tournament
hosted by South Africa.
It said 45,069 fans attended the MTN Fan Zones over the month-long period, with Montecasino collecting R285,000 and V&A Waterfront collecting R265,000 by the end of the fiesta won by Spain.
MTN has been partnering UAM, an anti-malaria advocacy group comprising Global Fund, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, United Nations Foundation, Roll Back Malaria Partnership, Johns Hopkins University, among others, to secure a united front in the quest to eliminate malaria.
The UAM initiative leverages football to raise global awareness and renew worldwide commitment to ending malaria, as well as increase the use of prevention and treatment tools in Africa.
The reason for this is not hard to glean as malaria kills a child every 30 seconds in Africa and nearly one million people each year.
The disease also contributes to the cycle of poverty and limits economic development on the continent as it costs 12 billion dollars in lost
productivity every year.
Almost 100 per cent of the population in MTN's African markets including Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Cote d'Ivoire and Benin are
directly affected by the disease.
MTN Group Executive Corporate Affairs Manager, Ms Nozipho January-Bardill, said the donation was to help protect the children from
malaria infections and when they had the disease ensure effective treatment.
"For many of our people football is their first love. What better way to demonstrate our shared commitment to the beautiful game than to use our sponsorship of the 2010 FIFA World Cup towards combating malaria, augmenting MTN's on-going anti-malaria interventions that have seen over 28,000 treated bed nets being distributed at malaria hotspots at MTN's operations".
In the case of 1 Goal, a project that aims at holding governments to the promises they made at the signing of the UN Millennium Development Goals (UNMDG) in 2000, MTN supports its objective of providing education for all boys, girls and illiterate adults by 2015.
In line with that support, MTN used its text messaging platform across all its 21 operations to invite subscribers to join the campaign which
started on May 1, 2010 and closed on July 31, 2010, with over 1.5 million subscribers supporting it.
"Our involvement in this campaign is an extension of the developmental role we continue to play in our markets through the work of our
foundations," said January- Bardill.
Mr Anthony Garstang, MTN General Manager for 2010 South Africa World Cup, thanked the thousands of soccer fans that flocked the two Fan Zones in Johannesburg and Cape Town during the tournament for making the donation possible.
The Chief Medical Officer at Anglo-American and Private Sector Board Member for the Global Fund, Dr Brian Brink, accepted the money on behalf of UAM, promising that it would contribute to the realisation of the one-million-dollar the South African partners aimed to donate to the Global Fund by the end of 2010.
MTN Group is a multinational telecommunications group, operating in 21
countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East with a subscriber base of 123 million.