Between Q1 and Q2 2020, several ACA’s Portfolio Companies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic offered varying support through targeted CSR activities and funds to cushion the impact of the virus on their employees, as well as host communities, respectively. A few of them include, Petra Trust, Union Bank, Daraju Industries, First Hydrocarbon Nigeria, Access Bank and MTN Nigeria.
Petra Trust facilitated a Petra COVID-19 Customer Relief Fund to provide some financial support to customers and employees impacted by the novel corona virus (COVID-19), and to those were either hospitalized or at risk of death from the infection. The seed money for the fund, GHS 100,000.00, was targeted at 224,000 of the company’s customers and 140 of their employees.
Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) donated COVID-19 support materials to Rivers State Government for medical care services.
Daraju Industries through its foundation (Daraju Foundation) distributed 500 relief packages to communities in Lagos. The firm also produced and donated 100 cartons of fressia hand sanitizers to Lagos and Ogun State Governments.
First Hydrocarbon Nigeria (FHN), donated essential COVID-19 medical equipment and relief materials to Delta State Government, and worked with other corporate bodies to establish a COVID-19 testing and treatment facility in Delta state.
MTN Nigeria, Union Bank and Access Bank played more strategic roles as members of the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), partnering with the Federal Govt, NCDC and WHO to combat COVID-19 in Nigeria. Access Bank and Union Bank also supported the government with NGN 1bn and NGN 250m relief fund respectively, and a further contribution of $130,000 from Union Bank to the Lagos State Emergency Food response Programme.
For Continental Reinsurance, the subsidiaries individually contributed to the COVID-19 efforts in their respective countries. Continental Reinsurance (Nigeria) donated N30million to the National Insurers Association, Continental Re (Kenya) donated KES2million and Continental Re (Cameroon) donated CFA300,000 towards the same cause.
ACA Foundation & Its Grantees Also Take the Lead
At the beginning of the nationwide lockdown in March, ACA, through its Foundation, sought to cushion the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on low-income families, through providing feeding relief support. The target was to feed 10,000 people (1000 people per day for 10 days). Give Food stamps, a social enterprise, facilitated and aided the delivery of this relief support.
Locations covered included shanties in Jakande and Idiaraba. Members of these communities were delighted and grateful for the support given to them.
The Grantees within the ACA Foundation network were not left out as the NGOs (Traditional grantees) and Tech Startups (Tech grantees) responded in their respective capacities to the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Traditional Grantees
Enactus Nigeria student teams are known for demonstrating leadership and implementing solutions that help solve key community problems. Despite the lockdown and the shutdown of schools, they all sought ingenious ways of mitigating the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in their communities. The Kaduna Polytechnic Enactus team creatively transformed waste materials into the handwashing
basins fully fitted with running water, to help the communities in their area with the necessary handwashing infrastructure. Also, where access to running water was restricted, they provided hand sanitizers – produced at affordable rates and to a quality that met 80% of WHO standards. Over 6000 bottles of these sanitizers were produced and sold to pharmacies, superstores, hospitals etc. Furthermore, the team produced and distributed safe, recyclable, low-cost face masks.
From online sensitization to communal engagement, the Enactus team from the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti focused on enlightening communities in their rural communities.
The Enactus team from Federal Polytechnic, Idah worked together to develop an e-commerce platform linking food sellers to buyers, thus reducing possible human contact.
In creating more awareness of the pandemic, the Enactus team from Bayero University, Kano created an engaging and very informative video in the Hausa language and disseminated same in different communities.
The Enactus team from Covenant University produced face masks which were distributed to Police Officers on patrol during the lockdown. Through the Enactus ABU Food Support, the Enactus team from Ahmadu Bello University provided food and relief materials to 150 vulnerable families in six different Zaria communities.
Another success story was Oluwatomilola Idris Mustapha, a student of the Enactus team of Tai Solarin University created the Leaders Hub – a virtual program that connects, engages young bright minds through a 30day Learning Challenge on WhatsApp from 5am-7am. The programme extends to pairing successful participants at the end of the challenge, with Enactus Alumni for a six-month mentorship program.
FATE Foundation had entrepreneurs within their network who proactively sought ways to innovate
and contribute to the needs arising from the pandemic. A few of the initiatives that emerged
include:
– The building of a Contactless Mobile Hand Washing Device towards safe hygiene
– Developing a collaborative work platform – Nzuko, that enables cooperative remote working for working professionals.
– Developing ClassNotes.ng; an education resource platform that provides educational video lesson for Nigerian students during the lockdown.
– The virtual delivery of design training classes, to interested participants looking to upskilling during the lockdown.
OPL Academy organized a series of open webinars in response to the COVID1-9 pandemic, aimed at encouraging tradesmen and equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the pandemic.
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), updated its annual macro-economic outlook report to reflect the major shifts arising from the global pandemic. They also partnered with the Africa Initiative for Governance (AIG) to enable the deployment of an Incidence and Response tracker, dashboard and predictive analytic platform – to assist the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.
Subsequently, an Education Intervention Survey was conducted to map and report the responses of various stakeholders in the Education sector to the Coronavirus pandemic, to understand learning innovations currently being implemented for learning from home. This was followed by a COVID-19 Households Impact Assessment Survey, developed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on households in Nigeria.
Tech Grantees
Davtonlearn through its platform, in April, promoted a monthly series of Covid-19 SME Webinars organized by Access Bank through accessmezone.com platform, with a total of 15,997 SME registrations and 8,556 attended. Some of the topics covered included Covid 19: Work plan for Entrepreneurs; How to adapt your Business in the New Normal, among others.
The COVID-19 Surveillance & Self Isolation Support Centre is a physician-led support centre to augment the efforts of the Lagos State Ministry of Health (MOH) towards the resolution of the COVID-19 pandemic. Doctoora setup the Covid-19 support consortium which has now digitized the isolation centres and created a care model for the community management of Covid-19 at Local government level. The project management, service design and project support are provided by Doctoora.
Energy Detectors in the bid to cushion the effects of the lockdown and pandemic, worked out discounted prices with their respective energy partners. Also, they developed a mobile app that helps with automated record filing for industries or organisations that sought to monitor their production plants remotely during the lockdown.
The Decagon team developed a mobile app for the Kaduna State Government for effectively. disseminating information on the Covid-19 pandemic to its 3.9million citizens.