The Chief Executive Officer Airtel Africa Christian de Faria today met the The President of Sierra Leone. Mr. De Faria reiterated his organizations commitment to further support the government of Sierra Leone through the investment of ICT development and other initiatives in the Health and Education sector to H.E President Ernest Bai Koroma at State House during his one day working visit to Sierra Leone.
Mr. De Faria with the Managing Director for Sierra Leone, Sudipto Chowdhury was at State House to present a cheque of One Hundred Million Leones to His Excellency as Airtel’s further contribution to the fight to eradicate the dreaded Ebola Virus that has been threatening the country in the past weeks. He added that this was in addition to the Seventy Million Leones raised by the staff which had already been handed over to the Minister of Health at the ARS Gala dinner held on Friday.
The President while handing over the cheque to the Minister of Health who was also present at the meeting said “I recognized Airtel’s effort in taking the lead in the fight against Ebola and I hope that other Corporate Institutions will emulate the example set by Airtel”. I cannot over emphasize the importance of a collaborative effort by all to fight this disease”.
The Minister of Health in her remarks said “This is not the first time Airtel has joined my ministry in this fight, I thank the leadership of Airtel and the staff for giving up a day’s salary, I want the contacts of all those who donated so that they are updated regularly on how their money is spent to fight this disease”.
The Minister of Information and Communication Speaking during the visit told His Excellency that he and Mr. De Faria, spoke about the possibility of replicating the rolling out of ICT training programmes similar to the one going on in Chad.
“Airtel recognizes the significant potential of the youth to drive the economies where we operate. That is why we are investing in rolling out ICT training programmes in countries such as Chad We are also in the process of training young adults in Gabon – and we will continue doing this across Africa including Sierra Leone,” said Mr. De Faria.
