The year 2020 has been a tough year globally with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic and as part of activities marking the 2020 Global Sustainability Week, employees of the Pan-African conglomerate, Dangote Group flagged off an employee volunteering initiative tagged; “Staying Safe Together, TheDangote Way”.
The initiative is focused on enlightening the public about preventive and safety guidelines to battle the virus.
As a women-friendly company, Dangote Group marked the Sustainability Week with the theme: “Staying Safe Together, The Dangote Way” with activities held in Lagos. The week long activities focused on encouraging both young and old most especially the womenfolk to take care of their various homes to avert a second wave of the pandemic in Lagos
The team of Dangote Company staff volunteers visited schools in Ikoyi environ and donated items like Facemasks, sanitizers and machines to help prevent the virus.
On Wednesday, November 18th, 2020 the team along with a doctor met with the Police Officers Wives Association (POWA) and The Army Wives Association to spread the gospel of ‘staying safe together”
Zouera Youssoufou, MD/CEO, Aliko Dangote Foundation said the initiative is borne out of the yearly Sustainable Week celebrated by the company.
“Every year we celebrate a Sustainability Week. This is to show we are Sustainabie as an organisation dealing with issues with the environment, our community and how we are living in harmony with the people who are our neighbours.”
“This year’s theme of the Sustainability Week is on Volunteering and we go to school, churches, mosques and educate the people on how to keep safe.”
“Today (Wednesday) We did an event with the Police Officers Wives Association POWA and we supplied items like facemasks, sanitizers ensure safety protocols. We want to people to keep adhering to safety protocols as we don’t want a second wave of the virus in our community like other countries,” she said.
Head of Sustainability, Dangote Group, Eunice Samson said the theme of the Dangote 2020 Sustainability Week, which is ‘Staying Safe Together the Dangote Way’ has enable the team to visit four public schools around Ikoyi
“This year, we ate able to bring home the theme: Staying Safe Together — the Dangote Way’ and visited schools in Ikoyi. We went with a doctor and spoke to the students on keeping safe and maintaining good hygiene in order to keep diseases at bay especially the dreaded coronavirus.”
“We also donated material and a machines to facilitate washing of hands always with soap. “
“On Wednesday, we brought the Women to educate them about the Covid-19 safety protocols since women are health keepers. The POWA women were willing to listen to us and we shared our Sustainable tips and safety precautions. Ultimately, our health is very important as this is when we can work and fend for our families”, says Ms. Samson
One of the highlights of the event on Wednesday was the account of one of the survivors of Covid-19 who was invited to share her testimony.
Ife Durosimi-Ettti, Founder of AGS Tribe, narrated her experience and how she fought effortlessly to battle the deadly virus and sadly losing a 40-year-old sibling to COVID-19.
“I fought Covid-19 symptoms in the month of June. The experience is not something that one can easily forget. Thank God I came out negative by June 27 after doing what I was told to do and using the medicine. I am here to tell u that Covid-19 is real. We have got to continue to use the facemasks and and obey all safety protocols because we don’t want a second wave. We don’t want Lagos to be lockdown again,” she said.