Airtel Ghana, a leading telecommunications network in the country has begun a fundraiser for charity initiative dubbed “Soak for Charity”, Airtel Ghana’s version of the Ice Bucket Challenge. The Ice Bucket Challenge, also called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, involves pouring a bucket of ice water on someone’s head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research.
Donations received from staff during the Soak for Charity Campaign will be used to support a project in the areas of Education, Health and ICT nominated by Staff.
Lucy Quist, Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, who had been thrown the challenge by an Airtel employee said: “We have never seen anything like this in the history of employee fund raising. We couldn’t be more thrilled with the level of compassion, generosity and sense of humor that employees are exhibiting as they take part in this impactful viral initiative.”
Before being bathed in ice water she nominated 3 people including the Executive Operations Director of Airtel Africa, Christophe Soulet.
Donald Gwira, Head of Corporate Communications, External Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility who had already taken the challenge, stated that the activity is aimed at promoting employee engagement in corporate social responsibility and driving their internal CSR initiative called Make a Difference Day. He explained that employees regardless of where they were located must respond to the challenge within 24 hours. “The rule is very simple – take a bucket of ice water, pour it over your head, record it, throw a challenge to two colleagues and one person outside Airtel Ghana and then post the video on social media” he explained.
Soak for Charity, begun with Avinash Bannerjee, a staff of Airtel Ghana, who chose this activity as his departmental Make A Difference Day (MADD) initiative and challenged Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, Lucy Quist, Luck Ochieng, M- Commerce Director and Isaac Armar, head of High Value in a recorded video. They had 24 hours to respond to his challenge which they have subsequently undertaken.
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Source: Airtel Ghana