19-year-old Philanthropist gets Airtel support

Airtel Touching Lives has offered to support 19-year-old philanthropist, Winifred Selby from Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region, who is providing shoes and sanitary pads to students in Bunkpurugu Yunyo District in the Northern Region of Ghana.

Students at Bunkpurugu Yunyo are said to walk bare feet for over eight miles to school every day, while other children of school-going-age, especially girls, are unable to attend school because they cannot afford a pair of shoes and sanitary pads.

Touched by the plight of these students, Winifred initiated a project to distribute sanitary pads and shoes to the children in Bunkpurugu Yunyo district.

Winifred has so far distributed a total of 3,000 pairs of shoes to students and 300 sanitary pads to the female students in the district, which has led to a boost in the school attendance rate in that district.

For her initiative to help better the lives of others, Airtel Ghana, through its Corporate Social Responsibility programme, 'Airtel Touching Lives', has offered to give Winifred bales of clothes to distribute to the needy, as part of her project .

Additionally, Airtel has offered to support Winifred with her education and charity work. “With this help from Airtel, I am going to do more”, Winifred said with excitement

One of the beneficiaries of Winifred's gesture, Mary Jabaan said “the sanitary pads make us comfortable to concentrate in class, and the shoes make us happy and excited because some of us did not haveg shoes to wear to school.”

Winifred's nominator, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bungpurugu Yunyo, Solomon Namlit Boar said he was dumbfounded when he came into contact with “this tiny girl who told me she had put together a proposal on behalf of deprived communities in the Northern Region which she had sent to some NGOs for assistance.”

In no time, Winifred who completed her senior high school education only last year, had commenced the distribution of sanitary pads and shoes to girls between the ages of 10 and 15 years.

“I was held spellbound when I interacted with Winifred and got to know some of the big things that were on her mind at her age,” the MP said.

Meanwhile, that episode of 'Touching Lives' also looked back at the story of Dora at Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region,  a mother of six whose husband mysteriously disappeared without a trace about three years ago, leaving her with the difficult task of caring for the children single-handedly.

Airtel provided Dora with a provisions shop fully stocked to support her in taking care of her children.

Dora, who is now better off was full of appreciation for the support. “Thanks to Airtel, things are going on well now”, she said.

She said, through the sales she makes from the shop, she is now able to look after her children in school.

Touching Lives 8 continues this weekend on Viasat 1,Metro TV and Multi TV (Joy News) on Friday; TV Africa , GTV  and Multi TV (Cine Afrik,Joy TV,Hitz TV, Adom TV) on Saturday and TV 3 on Sunday .