By Ragan Conteh
Orange Sierra Leone yesterday July 25th 2019 unveiled free quality education packages as part of the company’s social responsibilities in fulfillment of a pledge it made in August last year during the unveiling of the government’s flagship Free Quality Education Project in Sierra Leone.
In her statement, the Chief Executive Officer, Orange Sierra Leone, Madam Aminata Kane disclosed that Orange has been a responsible corporate company operating in Sierra Leone and which prides itself in adhering to its corporate social responsibilities towards the country, as it was the only telecommunication company that pledged its support to ensuring the success of the government agenda.
She said Orange pledged to support the government with 1.5million dollars in material assistance over a period of five years, informing that in fulfillment of their pledge, they have designed five projects in consultation with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary School Education and their partners which they hope to launch and execute over a period of five years beginning this year, 2019.
The Orange CEO, Madam Aminata Kane, expressed her satisfaction to the ministers of government for witnessing the ceremony.
She revealed that the company has launched three out of five projects including Super Coder Academy which will provide introductory ICT training on basic coding for one hundred senior secondary schools, adding that this will give the senior students an opportunity to learn gaming codes and creating game applications.
Madam Aminata Kane continued that the other project is the hygiene packs for girls, a project that contains a total of ten thousand hygiene packs including re-usable sanitary pads that will be distributed to young girls in order to avoid school drop-outs every month.
She furthered that the inter-secondary school competition is a month’s project that will see the commencement of the annual inter-secondary Secondary Schools competition for which Orange Sierra Leone will build five fully furnished computer labs for the five winning schools over the period five years.
She concluded that her company hopes to launch and roll out the remaining two projects: solar kids for school children and open classroom in 2020.
Launching the projects, the Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary School Education, Dr. Alpha Timbo, expressed satisfaction with Orange Company for the pledges it made and have fulfilled their promise, adding that many private investors including Orange Sierra Leone made pledges to the government’s initiative for providing Free Quality Education for all.
According to the Minister, his ministry appreciates the support from Orange which, he said, is important to note that future support must be even more closely aligned with his ministry’s priorities.
He said in the age of technology in this knowledge based world, computer technology and information technology and skills are vital for jobs of the 21st century and beyond, and assured children and their teachers to do a lot for their benefit from Orange support with regards the pilot phase.
The Minister of Information and Communications, Mohammed Rado Swaray thanked Orange Sierra Leone for the gesture and described the company as one of the best in telecommunications in this country.
He said the project is part of President Julius Maada Bio’s agenda to transform Sierra Leone through free and quality accessibility for all and called for more support to ensure sanity in the educational sector.
Many representatives including UNICEF, Organization of Africa Youth, ST Foundation and staff of the Ministry of Education made salient statements, while the Director of Education who also serves as the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, chaired the ceremony.