‘Airtel Touching Lives Season 6’ will focus on education, COVID-19 related issues as well as helping those with health challenges, Airtel Nigeria Managing Director, Segun Ogunsanya, has said.

Speaking at the launch of ‘Airtel Touching Lives Season 6’ in Lagos on Wednesday, Ogunsanya said that the telco’s initiative provided support and encouraged others to imbibe the culture of giving.

“In our approach for Season 6, we will pay attention to COVID-19, education, and other areas.

“We will not deviate from seeking out indigent and medically challenged persons who desperately need help,” Ogunsanya said.

The Airtel Nigeria boss said that the Corporate Social Responsibility initiative reiterated the company’s commitment toward helping the less privileged.

He said it was important for organizations to come together to collaborate more closely to solve some of the issues plaguing the country.

Ogunsanya noted that Airtel earned the ‘social license’ through its commitment to empowering and uplifting people as well as making a positive and lasting impact on the lives of its stakeholders.

The Airtel boss added that the ‘social license’ was the love, loyalty, friendship, and affection that the telco got from the communities where it operates.

“The ‘Airtel Touching Lives’ initiative was created to offer relief and hope to the underprivileged and downtrodden and also inspire the strong and the wealthy to support the weak and the poor.

“It is important that the strong continue to support the weak for our society to thrive.

“So, in our personal spaces, we can actually do something to support someone who requires help, it could be a family member, a neighbor, a stranger, or a random person,” Ogunsanya said.

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Speaking on the previous season of the programme, Ogunsanya said that the company refurbished a library for blind people, rehabilitated an IDP camp clinic facility, and refurbished houses for beneficiaries.

Ogunsanya said that Airtel also set up small-scale trade for underprivileged persons, paid medical bills of underprivileged children and women, and flew someone abroad for medical treatment, among others.

Also, Emeka Oparah, Airtel Nigeria Head of Corporate Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility, said that the company was on the lookout for the most touching stories and sent people to the locations to verify.

“We have different levels of verification and in the last five years of doing this CSR programme, we have never had anyone successfully scammed us, Oparah said.