Voltic Ghana Limited says it is committed to improving the lot of women in its value chain through economic empowerment programmes that will help them to be self-reliant.

According to Mrs. Joyce Ahiadorme, Public and Communications Manager of Voltic, an important part of the company’s corporate responsibility efforts in 2018, has been geared towards empowering women in their value chain, particularly those at the lower end of the chain, including hawkers, to be economically independent.

She was speaking to a section of Journalists when the company hosted winners of the 2018 Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) Flamingo awards to a tour of its Akwadum water bottling facility, in the Eastern Region, on Wednesday.

She said the company had so far directly empowered about 900 women with livelihood empowerment skills, including financial literacy and savings training.

Two widows in the Ashanti Region were also set up in trade by the company, who paid for the rental of stores for three years, after which it is expected that the financial advice support given them would have enabled them to save enough to continue payments on their own, and one-time payment for stock worth GH¢6000.

She noted that one of the widows was doing exceptionally well in the business and has sold the entire initial stock and restocked.

The move formed part of Voltic’s sustainability priorities dubbed ‘The 3Ws-Women Empowerment; Water Stewardship and Waste Management’.

“Our mission- to refresh Ghana every day while making the country a better place for all is translated into our sustainability priorities dubbed ‘The 3Ws- Women empowerment; Water Stewardship and Waste Management’.

The 3Ws demonstrates Voltic’s commitment towards creating greater shared opportunity for the business and the communities we serve across the value-chain,” Mrs. Ahiadorme stated.

Voltic was also working with its partners, under the Irecycle programme that it is championing, to help sustainably manage its post-consumer waste from households in Accra and Tema Metropolis.

The programme is a collection and segregation drive, which will see Voltic and its partners provide alternative bins at 40 locations, mainly Total Service stations.

The goal is to encourage consumers to segregate their plastics into those special containers.

The tour was part of Voltic’s sponsorship towards the fifth IFEJ Flamingo awards held on 14th December 2018.

She noted that Voltic was proud to work with Journalists, especially members of IFEJ, who worked tirelessly to bring news-worthy stories that enabled business decisions while bringing to the fore areas of opportunities for businesses to impact deprived communities.

The team thanked Voltic for hosting them and also recommended areas of improvement for the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility/ Sustainability priorities - The 3Ws.