Cecilia Fiaka, a decade ago, was comfortable in her job at Stanbic Bank. But when she visited her hometown one time for vacation, she realised that the youth in the town are practising certain vices that can be avoided with the right education and awareness creation.
She quit her job and established the Nneka Youth Foundation. A decade on, Ms. Fiaka, through the foundation, is on a mission to give the necessary guidance and support to children in the rural communities in an attempt to curb social vices and bring them to the point of believing that they too can be world-changers.
“It is our conviction that the transformation in the thinking of our future leaders will inevitably lead to a positive transformation of our nation,” she notes.
Since the establishment of the foundation, there have been summer camps, workshops, teacher training, speed mentorships, financial literacy programmes, sponsorship (scholarship) programmes, book drives, vocational entrepreneurial pathway, and the Nneka Palm Oil Woman Empowerment Re-Orientation scheme. “We covered grounds in Afadjato South, Jasikan District, Shai-Osudoku District and Ningo-Prampram. We covered over 900 households and impacted the lives of everyone we met.”
COVID-19
Just as everyone witnessed, the foundation, in 2020, could have slowed down their activities, but it doubled up and ensured that its initiatives were still implemented, especially the flagship project, ‘World Changers Camp’. The programme is a residential summer camp to help develop positive mindsets among rural youths from 200 communities.
“All sessions are held at our very own Youth Development Centre at Ve Agbome in the Afadjato South District in the Volta Region of Ghana. The camps are carefully and tactically structured with embedded seminars, clinics, breakout sessions, ICT trainings, arts and vocational skills training handled by seasoned resource persons.
“On our part, we embarked on a COVID-19 awareness drive to dispel misinformation about the existence of the virus, as well as donate Veronica Buckets, nose masks and soaps to community members,” she added.
Khadidjah Mahamah Isah, who nominated Ms. Fiaka, said: Cecilia is well-deserving of this award, and the prime choice because she has constantly demonstrated her core values of her goodness, benevolence and philanthropic service to the public through her persistent contributions to both her foundation and certain communities within Ghana”.
MTN Ghana Foundation
The MTN Ghana Foundation was established in November 2007 as the vehicle to select and implement MTN’s Corporate Social Investments. MTN Ghana Foundation has three areas of focus – Health, Education and Economic Empowerment. From its inception to date, the foundation has undertaken 158 major projects across the country. These include 87 Education Projects, 53 Healthcare Projects, 13 Economic Empowerment Project and 4 Community Support Initiatives.
