Accra, Ghana – The MTN Ghana Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of MTN Ghana, the leading telecom services provider, today awarded 500 scholarships to brilliant but needy students and teachers in public tertiary institutions in the country.
The scholarships are designed to ease financial barriers, enabling beneficiaries to pursue their academic goals, advance their professional development and realise their full potential.
They therefore cover the cost of tuition, accommodation and a stipend for books and other relevant reading materials for the duration of their studies.
While each of the beneficiaries also received a brand new HP laptop to aid their studies.
The Foundation awards the scholarships to students in public tertiary institutions each year since 2017. Beneficiaries are selected from all 16 regions of Ghana.
Speaking at the scholarship awards ceremony in Accra, the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Stephen Blewett, was confident that through the MTN Bright Scholarship programme, the beneficiary students would complete their studies with ease.
He shared the harrowing experience of a scholarship beneficiary who had spent a year at home because his family could not afford university fees but later gained admission to the University for Development Studies with support from the MTN Ghana Foundation.
The beneficiary, Mr Blewett noted subsequently graduated with distinction and received awards as the overall best graduating student at the School of Pharmacy, as well as the best student in pharmacology and herbal medicine.
“The talent was already there for this young man, so was the determination. The scholarship from us helped him to overcome and remove the financial barrier in his way,” Blewett said.
“That is why we are here, to help ensure that financial hardship does not bring a promising education to an end”.
The programme reflects MTN’s appreciation of the support Ghanaians have given the company over the past three decades and its desire to contribute to the country’s future development. Today is one way we can say thank you. Not simply by looking back, but by helping another family look ahead and hope, according to him.
He therefore urged the beneficiaries to put the scholarships to good use by dedicating all their time to their studies.
In her welcome address, the Acting General Manager for Sustainability and Shared Value at the Foundation, Mrs Georgina Asare-Fiagbenu, said the scholarships reaffirmed MTN’s longstanding commitment to education, youth empowerment and national development.
Genesis of the scholarship programme
The scholarship programme fulfils MTN’s commitment to Ghanaians during the commemoration of its 20th Anniversary in 2016.
During the celebrations, MTN Ghana, through the foundation, said it would award 100 scholarships to students in public tertiary institutions each year for three years. In all, more than 600 scholarships have been awarded so far.
Beneficiaries of the scholarship programme also thanked MTN Ghana for investing in their future and promised the telecom company’s board, management, and staff that they won’t disappoint them.
