As part of its award-winning 21 days of Yello Care initiative, MTN Ghana would begin a project to grow 9,000 trees across the country to help combat climate change. This year’s MTN Yello Care initiative is slated for June 1 – 21, 2011 during which employees, partners and stakeholders of MTN would go round selected schools and communities across Ghana educating people about the need to protect the environment, planting trees and cleaning beaches. MTN Ghana Chief Executive Officer, Michael Ikpoki noted that as part of the Yello Care initiative, all 21 operations of MTN in Africa and the Middle East had been mandated to plant and grow 1,000 trees each, but MTN Ghana was taking it to another level to plan and grow 9,000 trees in line with its nine million customers in Ghana. He noted that over the past two decades, Ghana’s forest cover had reduced drastically from 20 million to 1.8 million hectares. “MTN is committed to environmental stewardship and as such we are committing to growing 21,000 trees across all our operations, but MTN Ghana is going the extra mile to grow 9,000 trees in Ghana alone,” he said. Mr. Ikpoki said MTN would be working in close partnership with selected ministries and concerned government and private institutions to roll out a sustainable programme to ensure that the trees planted were also nurtured to grow and benefit society in the long-term. “Apart from the 9,000 trees other programmes outlined for the Yello Care celebration include some environmental awareness campaign in selected schools, clean up exercises along the beaches and ecotourism projects,” he said. He said MTN was particularly interested in protecting the ocean and water bodies in Ghana and across its 21 operations. Frazier Malcolm is the Coordinator of MTN Ghana Foundation, and he told Asempa News that MTN had a sustainable programme in place to create recreational centres around the trees it would grow, so the communities could benefit from them. He said the trees would also be fruit trees which people could get fruits from to either sell or enjoy by themselves. Frazier Malcolm appealed to Ghanaians who had space to spare to volunteer them so MTN could plant and grow trees on them for the benefit of the country. “When we grow the trees, it would save us from the hot environment we experience lately and also provide fruits and several other benefits for us all,” he said. MTN Ghana Foundation’s Corporate Social Responsibility project won it the Best CSR Company at the recent Mobileworld Ghana Telecoms Awards. Story by: Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona/Asempa FM/Ghana