Monday, 04 June 2012 00:00

In what appears to be a sharp response to the decline of reading culture in the country, Mobile Telephone Network of Nigeria (MTN) has said that it would be assisting the Nigerian child to develop the reading habit within the next 21 days in the month of June.

Corporate Services Executive, at MTN, Mr. Wale Goodluck, made the disclosure at the flagging off ceremony at this year’s 21 days Y’ello Care, a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative of the MTN Group.
 According to him, MTN is focusing of reading as a culture and habit because reading has become a major problem to most pupils saying that the MTN would be bringing some fun into reading.
He said that the staff of the mobile operator across the country has been divided into four groups namely White House, Y’ello House, Blue House and Red House and that each of the group would be visiting schools across the country to teach children how to read.

Goodluck while urging the staff to make donations to support the project said that the 21 days Y’ello Care initiative is observed every year across MTN operating units.
He said, “It provides platform for MTN staff to further demonstrates MTN’s leadership in CSR, by collectively talking part in social investment projects in our various communities and take the MTN brand care to the very people who make it possible for us to do business.”
He explained that MTN is focusing on education because, “education remains key to Africa’s and indeed Nigeria’s development agenda. In the same, vein, education is critical to MTN’s overall CSI strategy which is guided by a commitment to adding value in the Nigerian education sector and ultimately contributing to socio-economic development”.

He further said, “This year’s programme focuses on improving educational standards, providing an enabling environment for leaning and promoting gender equality in education by investing in the education of the girl child”.
According to him, a major project for this year is the flag off Make Reading A Child’s Habit (MARCH), which is designed to make to promote reading culture in Nigeria adding that MTN would be partnering with an NGO, Proact Education Services to deploy six reading clubs across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

He said that another project that will be form part of this year’s event is TeachMe ReachMe, which involves actual classroom teaching motivation talks and ICT awareness workshops as well as Girl child Education that requires staff of MTN to pledge to support girl child education adding that the Y’ello Spelling Bee will also kick off too.
He disclosed that 15 schools across the country would have their libraries upgraded in the Library Upgrade project while in the BeNice initiative books and educational material would be donated just as the Y’ello Basket would afford staff to make personal donations.