MTN Foundation, first corporate foundation in Cameroon, announces the launch of its 2019 “Back2Skoul” initiative aimed at supporting the back-to-school of underprivileged children. More than 500 children will benefit this initiative in all 10 regions of the country for the 2019-2020 school year. MTN Foundation has been supporting orphans and underprivileged children from 10 orphanages and care centres for several years now.
In each of these orphanages and care centres approved by the Ministry of Social Affairs, MTN Foundation has set up a mini-school library equipped, among other things, with all curriculum textbooks of all the classes, from Class One to Upper Sixth, accessible to all the inmates.
Scholarships and school supplies are provided to inmates of orphanages and care centres authorized by the Ministry of Social Affairs in the ten regions of the country.
Back to school support
On the occasion of back-to-school, these underprivileged children receive from MTN Foundation, school supplies that comprise school bags, exercise books, pens, didactic materials and protective clothing that enable them to cope with the rainy season. MTN Foundation also offers scholarships to the top five students in each of these orphanages and care centres. In addition, volunteer MTN staff are available throughout the school year to assist the inmates in better assimilating their lessons.
This support mechanism, now in its third year with the current back-to-school, constitutes a repositioning of MTN Foundation’s “Back2Skoul” initiative. In the past, MTN Foundation provided school supplies to thousands of disadvantaged children across the country but could not really measure the impact of its contribution, as the beneficiaries were not always inmates of known structures. With this new formula, MTN Foundation can ensure better follow-up of the beneficiary children and produce a greater impact over time.
“He who wants to do many things at a time ends up doing nothing. This repositioning of our support for the back-to-school of the most underprivileged aims at improving our contribution to the education of the beneficiaries. To be more effective, and have a greater impact over time, we are now monitoring a specific number of students in care centres in all ten regions of the country. We provide these structures with the essentials to ensure access to quality education. And, in collaboration with the care centres, we can better monitor their progress and appraise the impact of our humble contribution,” explained Jean-Melvin Akam, Executive Secretary of the MTN Cameroon Foundation.
The beneficiaries of the MTN Foundation’s “Back2Skoul” initiative scored a success rate of 83% at last year’s official and promotion exams. This performance reassures MTN Foundation in its new positioning which entails reducing the number of students under its care, to focus on the monitoring quality.