Safaricom Foundation celebrates 20 years of transforming lives

Safaricom Foundation has marked its 20^th anniversary with a visit to some selected hospitals across the country to support maternal and newborn care and share food hampers with children’s homes.

Since its inception in 2003, the Foundation in a statement on Monday revealed that it has invested over KES 5 billion in more than 4,000 community projects, directly impacting over 8 million Kenyans across all 47 counties in the areas of education, health, economic empowerment, and access to water, environmental conservation, and disaster response.

“In the past two decades, Safaricom Foundation has grown to become one of the biggest enablers of Kenyan communities. Whether through partnering with individuals on small investments that have a big impact, or implementing large-scale, long-term programs of nationwide scale, our purpose of transforming lives has always been at the core of the Foundation,” said Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom PLC.

To mark the milestone, throughout the month, the Foundation joined by Safaricom staff will distribute Mama Packs in select hospitals across the country to support maternal and newborn care, and share food hampers with children’s homes.

The Foundation will also go across all 47 counties to engage and connect with communities and its stakeholders with different activities lined up, including medical camps, fistula camps, the launch of projects and programmes, and mentorship of young people in different areas.

“As we celebrate 20 years of transforming lives, we have learned a lot and developed key insights into how we approach philanthropy. One key strategy that has defined our interventions is partnerships with experts in the fields we seek to create impact, and with the communities we aim to transform. As we look to the future and implement our 2023-2026 strategy, partnerships will remain important in our work as a Foundation,” said Joseph Ogutu, Chairman, Safaricom Foundation.

Some of the new interventions set to be launched under the Foundation’s 2023-2026 strategy include digitizing teachers’ training colleges under the education pillar, revamping its maternal health programme to become a comprehensive Reproductive, Maternal, Neo-Natal, Child, and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) initiative, and expansion of its Economic Empowerment Programme to include Agribusiness, Ecoprenuership and Enterprise Development.

By: Kanto Okanta