Pan African mobile phone manufacturers, Rlg Communications Ltd, will soon unveil a new continental-wide initiative to support select group of persons largely considered underprivileged to improve their socio-economic status.

The Rlg Ethical Sales Program (RESP) is also expected to scale-up funding for the company’s social investment arm, the Rlg Foundation to deepen its impact in rural communities across the continent.

Under the initiative, school dropouts, hawkers and persons with disability will be offered mobile phones, desktops and other products manufactured by the company for sale.

“50% of the profits will be given to them for use, while the Rlg Foundation maintains the remaining 50% for Corporate Social Responsibilities”, according to a statement signed by company’s Corporate Affairs Manager, Emmanuel Arthur.

The program, yet to be launched, is expected to be rolled out in all African countries where the company has presence and will be carried out on monthly basis, according to the statement.

The company’s statement explains the initiative has been necessitated by increasing needs of the underprivileged who are socially and economically disadvantaged by their peculiar circumstances.

“As a people-centred company, we do not think that anybody should be marginalised”, the statement said.

An Informal Economy Monitoring Study conducted by Inclusive Cities on Street Vendors in Accra in July 2013 confirmed that informal work is essential to urban livelihoods. Almost 88 per cent of participants rely on informal work as the primary income for their household.

Fewer than nine per cent said their primary source of household income is formal sector wage employment, according to the report authored by Nana Akua Anyidoho of the ISSER, University of Ghana.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on the other hand estimates the disability rate of Ghana to be between 7 and 10 per cent, which equates approximately 1.55 – 2.2 million people in the country.

Earlier surveys of individual districts by the Ghana Human Development Scale (GHDS) in 1993 and the Norwegian Association of the Disabled (NAD) in 1998 and 1999 indicated that the three most prevalent types of disability are those related to visual impairment, hearing impairment and physical disabilities, most of whom lack access to socio-economic opportunities.