Tigo Ghana’s flagship Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme, ‘Shelter for Education,’ has partnered with Raising Readers Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, which is committed to encouraging children to read.

At an official ceremony in Accra to launch the initiative, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Tigo, Roshi Motman, was optimistic that together with Raising Readers Foundation, the Tigo’s Shelter for Education team would be able to scale up and have a wider impact on children.

“Reading is priceless – it opens up doors beyond our imagination. It opens our eyes and minds to the world and it helps us improve on vocabulary and dictation. Language is the foundation of learning and development and reading helps us get the language right,” she said.

She assured that Tigo will continue to support Ghana’s socio-economic development through various initiatives under the Sustainable Development Goals.

She listed Tigo’s contribution to education to include infrastructural development for several basic schools in rural areas and the partnerships various organisations including Street Library Ghana and Reach for Change just to mention a few.

Talking about the vision of Raising Readers Ghana, the Founder, Nana Aba Anamoah, said the goal is to create a mobile literacy outreach initiative focused on recreational reading beyond the classroom.

“We have started off by creating reading clubs in various communities. In partnership with Tigo and other donors, we hope to expand in future and make use of the various community libraries dotted all over Ghana that are not currently in use,” she said.

Chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei, who was the guest speaker at the launch, said a nation without readers is a nation without a future.

“From reading we learn the lessons of history, we learn the solutions to national and personal problems, we learn from the experiences of others and learn to appreciate that other people may have different perspectives from us however it doesn’t make them wrong,” she emphasised.

She added that “from reading we learn life skills, we acquire knowledge, and we learn wisdom. Reading is critical to our survival as people and as a nation.”

Other dignitaries at the event included the former Minister for Sports and Member of Parliament of Odododiodio Constituency, Nii Lantey Vandepuye, award-winning musician, Michael Owusu Addo, known popularly as Sarkodie, Dr. Michael Boadi Nyamekye, General Overseer of Makers House Chapel International, actress, Yvonne Okoro, and Television host and lawyer, Sandra Ankobiah.

Several other sports personalities also donated reading books to the project.