Airtel Ghana launches “Touching Lives” season two
Airtel Ghana has launched the second 13-week season of its hit emotional television show, Airtel Touching Lives.
The show is dedicated to rewarding and supporting people who have volunteered their time, treasure and talent to help others; and also to assist people in urgent need of help but are themselves helping others.
The first edition of the show saw some emotional and moving stories of how some Ghanaians, all of the country, look over their own challenges and sacrifice the little they have to take care of others.
One of such moving stories was that of Dr. David Abdulai, who later became the proud winner of the Martin Luther King Award for Peace and Social Just this year, after being discovered on Airtel Touching Lives season one.
Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, Philip Sowah told Adom News season two would revisit some of the stories of season one to bring viewers up to speed on how those touched are fairing.
He said the intention is to ensure that the program is sustainability, impactful and empowering.
“We get to see how what we did in season one has been sustained and then we go on to impact and empower new people in season two,” he said.
Mr. Sowah said thousands of entries came in and Airtel had a difficulty selecting the thirteen because all the stories were good and they could have easily gotten hundreds of stories that deserve support.
He said Airtel spends lots of money on Touching Lives and other corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities but they do not see the need to mention the amount because the impact they make on people’s lives cannot to valued in terms of money.
“This is the most fun part of my job – for us as a company this is part of our DNA – it is our reason for being because we get to give to people who are already doing great things in spite of their own challenges,” he said.
Touching Lives season two takes off on Sunday, March 11, 2012 on a number of TV stations, including Adom TV on MultiTV.
It begins with the very touching story of Rebecca Asantewaa from Sunyani in the Brong-Ahafo region who quit her job to take care of five heavily disabled children and one able child of her late sister.
Her story was entered by her nephew, Vincent Acquah and a neighbour of theirs.
Rebecca has four children of her own, and has been taking care of all ten children full time for the past eleven years through handouts from friends and colleague church members.
She told Adom News she used to trade in tomatoes but had to quit and spend her capital taking care of the children who could hardly fend for themselves.
Rebecca said the five disabled person are only able to brush their teeth but everything else has to be done for them by her and the one able child, Vincent, who is now on tuition scholarship at the Catholic University in Fiapre.
Rebecca and the children wake up every morning expecting God to provide for them because they is no regular source of income, as the boys’ father is also grown weak and can no more farm.
Airtel Touching Lives came in handy and provided all the boys with wheel chairs, an extra room where they can keep the wheel chairs, GHC1,000 hostel fees for Vincent who has been perching on campus; paid the fees of two of the boys who are now in JHS three and one, and gave Rebecca a shop full of items to sell and provide for the boys.
Airtel is also paying for the medical examination of the boys and also for any bills to be incurred if doctors recommend surgery for any of them.
business.myjoyonline.com
his article was originally posted on Sustainable Development Africa Platform
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