Airtel Africa team brightens up orphaned children in Mathare school

 
 

…marketing team inspires Mogra Star pupils and tips them on how to be successful in life

…slum school is catering for some of the most underprivileged, but promising, children in Kenya

 Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications service provider with operations in 20 countries across South Asia and Africa, made a connection with over 800 orphaned children in Mathare, by visiting Mogra Star

Academy, one of the most underprivileged institutions of its kind in the Kenyan capital.

Airtel Africa’s marketing team, which drives the company’s brand in the continent, made a donation of Kshs 150,000 and other items including clothes, blankets and toys to the children. More importantly, the team interacted with the children, inspiring them with tips on how to build their budding potential while in school.

Mogra Star is located in Nairobi’s Mathare, a slum area situated three miles east of the city’s central business district, and considered one of the worst in Africa. Mathare is home to over 600,000 inhabitants occupying an area of two square miles.

Airtel Africa Chief Marketing Officer Andre Beyers, who led the team, said: “Airtel’s marketing team has been inspired by the story of Mogra Star and its indomitable spirit of the founder who has been selfless in nurturing the dreams of these children. Our team’s hope is to see the institution developed in order to secure as many lives out there in the streets as possible, and transform them into tomorrow's leaders.”

Mr. Beyers said the marketing team’s philanthropic gesture is a part of the company’s larger corporate responsibility goal of supporting sustainable learning in schools, a model that Airtel has adopted for tens of schools across Africa.

Mogra Star Academy provides education at both primary and secondary levels and seeks to provide a better foundation for a brighter future to the pupils and students. The institution not only provides education but also food and shelter to the destitute children.

The Mogra Project was founded in 1998 as an initiative of Mrs. Hanna Njoroge. Having been brought up in the slums, she was aware of the many children unable to go to school because of abject poverty with their parents also unable to pay school fees.

Mrs Njoroge realized the children not attending school engaged in petty crime, scavenged for food and were being forced into child labour. She set up a children’s home in Mathare which she registered as a charitable children’s institution. She then realized many children were unable to attend a school and so founded Mogra Star Academy to provide free education in the Mathare slum.

Airtel Africa’s ‘Our School’ programme involves tens of primary schools which have been adopted in rural areas of 17 African countries where Airtel operates. Working closely with the governments in these countries, the initiative seeks to improve the delivery of quality education to children, especially those from underprivileged areas. So far the schools under the programme are catering to over 16,000 underprivileged children.