For us at Etisalat, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) represents a complete and wholesome relationship between us and our stakeholders. It also involves ensuring that our employees’ behaviors reflect Etisalat Code and Ethical Principles in dealing with all our stakeholders.

In addition, we also broadly explain CSR as our responsibility to:

• Create value through sustainable products and services;
• Minimize our environmental impact;
• Contribute to the wellbeing of the overall society, while ensuring that the ability of our stakeholders to meet their needs and aspirations is not compromised.
  

To create a sustainable economic and social impact through limitless reach.

To extend the reach of the Nigerian people by providing socially responsible products and services; enabling sustainable growth through our projects in areas of Leadership, Education, Health and Environment and building meaningful relationships with our stakeholders through engagement - an indication that with optimism and a caring attitude, we can all surpass boundaries.

ADOPT-A-SCHOOL PROGRAM

The Adopt–a-School Initiative (ASI) is a Public Private Partnership between Lagos State Government and business organizations in the state. A.S.I is designed to improve the deplorable state of public schools in Lagos by urging corporate bodies to get involved in upgrading public schools through strategic support in areas they choose.

Under this program, Etisalat has adopted three schools for life; Akande Dahunsi Memorial High School, Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos; Edward Blyden Primary School, Okesuna, Lagos Island and Rabiatu Thompson Primary School, Surulere, Lagos.

In these schools, we are contributing our quota towards alleviating the infrastructural challenges faced in the Nigerian education sector particularly in Lagos State. We are undertaking total renovation of the schools’ infrastructure including roofing, re-tiling of walls and floors, borehole reconstruction, upgrading and renovation of toilet facilities with state of the art plumbing systems, among others. The company also intends to build and stock a new comprehensive library at Akande Dahunsi as well as upgrade its science laboratory and music studio amongst others facilities.

The refurbishment of Rabiatu Thompson Primary School is ongoing. We have completed the construction of two brand new blocks of nine classrooms: a block of four classrooms and the other five classrooms. We have also completed a brand new administrative block for teachers and other staff of the school. These buildings have in-built state-of-the art convenience facilities for students as well as staff of the school.

At Edward Blyden, like dilapidated buildings in Rabiatu Thompson Primary School, the company has had to demolish all the buildings in the school and re-build them from scratch. Three blocks of 11 classrooms are currently being built to provide the much needed decent environment that foster good learning and knowledge acquisition. These classrooms are complemented with a block of complete toilet facilities with nine rooms for the convenience of students and teachers.

Our plan is not to only fully upgrade the facilities within these adopted schools, we are also committed to continually providing support in areas such as leadership education, management and direct support for students and teachers’ development.

For us, the essence of the program is to provide total support towards producing highly enabled students.

Career Counseling for Students

The Career Counseling Scheme, an employee volunteering program is an aspect of the internal CSR of Etisalat which falls under the Adopt-A-School Initiative. Through volunteering program, employees have the opportunity to fulfill their desire of impacting the society positively. Employees are encouraged to volunteer their time and employ their skills in providing career counseling as well as mentorship to students of secondary schools.

The key objective is to guide the students appropriately towards making the right and fulfilling career choices as a wrong career move may have long-term negative effects. Our focus is mainly on our adopted schools, but other schools are equally included in the program. The career counseling scheme is continuous and it is designed to be implemented at least three times yearly in schools.

As is with all our initiatives, the career counseling program is implemented in partnership with NGOs and other development institutions. We are currently partnering with Lagos State Empowerment and Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N) which is driven by the wife of the Lagos State Governor, Her Excellency, Mrs. Abimbola Fasola.

Awards

Etisalat has won top CSR awards for its commitment to impacting positively on society.
Some of these awards include:

• Category-A Award for Corporate Social Responsibility at the CSR Awards organized by the Lagos State Government
• 1st place in the Corporate Social Responsibility category at the prestigious Etisalat Group Innovation Awards in Abu Dhabi, UAE
• Model in Education and Youth Development Award at a Lagos State Government organized awards

ETISALAT SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME
The Etisalat Scholarship Award is a scholarship scheme that offers university students the opportunity to secure a grant towards the completion of their programs such as Electrical Electronics Engineering, Computer Science and Management Studies. It is designed to empower the best students in two award categories: The Etisalat Merit Award and The Etisalat Community Award.

The Etisalat Merit Award is given to the best students who excel academically, while the recipients of the Etisalat Community Award are the best students in their respective areas of study who are principally from identified host communities.

Over 160 students in universities across the country have so far benefitted from our scholarship scheme.

ETISALAT CENTRE FOR CSR
The concept and practice of CSR is evolving and ways to ensure international best practices are constantly being explored. The need to employ CSR to ensure sustainability is apparent and urgent everywhere in the world but perhaps nowhere more so than in Africa.

Our CSR strategy has taken into cognizance what we consider the rather peculiar Nigerian situation; CSR and philanthropy are mostly used interchangeably when in truth both are completely and mutually exclusive terms and concepts. Yet it is a fact of life in Nigeria that corporate bodies; government officials tend to misunderstand what it truly represents and its potential to drive sustainability. These, combined with other factors, provided the bedrock upon which we conceptualized and defined our CSR strategy. This strategy as stated focuses on varied socio-economic groups which include decision and policy makers in government as well as business leaders such as the chief executive officers of corporate organizations.

Based on our CSR strategy, we have developed initiatives for the top socio-economic groups. We believe that empowering these groups will help in enabling sustainable development via CSR. One of such initiatives is the Etisalat CSR Centre in partnership with the Lagos Business School of the Pan-African University.

The Etisalat CSR Centre is the first of its kind in Nigeria and it focuses on CSR and related issues. The key functions of the Centre are knowledge creation, dissemination and application.
In the area of knowledge creation, it focuses on research in relevant areas of interest including corporate governance, work-family balance and business ethics. As a knowledge disseminating agent, the centre will run in-house seminars and workshops on CSR as well as integrate CSR modules in MBA and executive programs. In addition, CSR knowledge will be applied in assisting organizations develop and implement CSR strategies.

The CSR partnership with LBS is focusing on people at the top end of the socio-economic ladder with the objective of making even bigger impacts on society because we are able to shape the opinion of decision-makers. For us, this was a huge motivating factor in our decision to partner with LBS on the development of the CSR centre. The program, which is included in the MBA curriculum, is designed to address the challenges associated with the theory and practice of CSR.

The Center is one of the ways Etisalat has shown its commitment to contributing to raising the awareness level, the significance, and sustainable methods of practicing CSR, a new and evolving concept.

Health Platform

With about 250 million malaria cases and nearly one million deaths which put about 3.3 billion people (half of the world's population) at risk of malaria, our focus on the health platform is on reducing the malaria scourge through the ‘Fight Malaria’ scheme.

Available evidence shows that people living in the poorest countries are the most vulnerable to the disease. This reason (beyond the fact that preventive measures are more effective than curative ones) has largely informed our malaria education approach.

It is our belief that this approach is indeed a practical and hands-on way towards contributing to eliminating the deadly malaria scourge.

The Environment
As part of our efforts in providing eco-friendly as well as sustainable products and services, Etisalat has partnered with Oberthur to make available innovative SIM packs called ECO SIMs. The new cards have successfully cut in half the amount of plastic waste used for the renewal of a SIM card. Manufactured with 50% less plastic, the environmental footprint of this new SIM card is reduced by half compared to a classic SIM card, from 16g of CO2 to 8g of CO2 generated per card. This new format uses half the quantity of plastic for production and reduces waste.

Until now, SIM cards were produced on sheets of plastic using a credit card size format.

The strategy is to reduce the environmental impact of SIM cards from production to client delivery. The customers receive the new SIM cards in an environmentally-friendly envelope (made of natural, non-treated, non-bleached fibers, a paper window, aqueous ink and glue without solvent). The paper used for the letter accompanying the card is made of 100% recycled fibers and printed with vegetable-based inks.

Beyond our eco-friendly products and services, we are partnering with credible institutions, organizations as well as government bodies in driving our green initiatives. The British Council is one of them. Our partnership efforts are generally geared towards mitigating the effects of climate change as well as ensuring a sustainable environment.

Regional Initiatives

Etisalat has specially designed initiatives for the different regions in the country. Some of these initiatives cut across the different CSR platforms and focus on capacity building, teacher training, support for students training to become teachers of those with special needs as well as vocational training.