Ayodeji Ake
As a way of giving back to the society, PZ Cussons Foundation has clearly stated its ambition in continuous Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) on education, water, empowerment and health in rural areas across the country. While celebrating with friends, family and other corporate organizations at its 10th anniversary of positive impact recently in Lagos, Chairman Board of Trustees PZ Cussons, Prof. Emmanuel Edozien, noted that the foundation has been charged with the task of impacting the society through CSR especially in the rural areas with no profit motive.
“PZ Cussons Nigeria PLC came up with the idea to set up a more structured way of formulating and executing Corporate Social Responsibility programme by registering a Foundation. That was a departure from previous way of doing similar kind of acts on ad hoc basis. To that effect, a board of trustees, comprising 15 persons from diverse professional, ethnic and religious background, under my chairmanship, was appointed and saddled with the task of translating that dream into reality.
“At its inaugural meeting, the board deliberated and came up with four areas of intervention: education, health, potable water, infrastructure. These choices were informed by the desire to directly and positively impact lives without any profit motive or consideration. In other words, how PZ Cussons will give back to society translating their commercial mission of ‘Making Life Better’ to their ‘Social Investment Programme’ better known as CSR, of touching lives and we found answers in the four areas. Infrastructure was later reviewed to economic empowerment of the vulnerable group,†he said.
In appreciation, Edozien commended traditional rulers and state governments for their supports towards the achievement of the foundation as he emphasised on embarking on more CSR to rural communities.
A representative of Mbamba Community in Yola South Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Malam Umar Aliyu Bello, commended the foundation for renovation of the community’s health clinic and power intervention in the community.
“Sincerely PZ Cussons Foundation is a blessing to our community. They helped in the renovation of the Mbamba Community Health Clinic. The renovation undertaken by the foundation has upgraded the clinic. Consequently, people from neighboring towns and villages patronise the clinic more than ever before. Records have shown for example, from January to November 2017, the clinic has attended to 1,429 antenatal cases, 356 labour delivery cases, 372 immunisation cases, 1,284 cases for family planning, and 2,879 OPD cases.
“Also after suffering a long period of darkness due to the breakdown of the transformer supplying electricity to the Mbamba Community, PZ Cussons Foundation came to their rescue. The foundation purchased and installed a brand new 200KVA transformer for the community. This singular gesture has helped our community tremendously. It was able to connect the community primary school, borehole as well as the Mbamba Health Clinic to the national grid. God bless them,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer, PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc., Mr. Christos Giannopoulos while commending contributors to the success story of PZ Cussons Foundation, also confirmed the foundation will continue to contribute to the growth of the country through its CSR activities
“We have been committed to giving back to the community through our CSR activities, we have been able to reach out to many people across the country. I thank everyone who has contributed to the success of this journey. We hope to see improvement in our projects from 50 to 100 and we will get there,†he said.
