By William Madouk
The leading mobile telecom company, MTN South Sudan, has launched its flagship 21 Days of Y’ello Care campaign aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs in the country.
MTN teamed up with the Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare and the South Sudan Women Entrepreneurs Association [SSWEA] to launch the Y’ello Care Campaign, which would benefit 50 women dealing in the value chain and food processing.
The campaign this year is centered on equipping women entrepreneurs with digital skills, financial tools, business skills, and online safety and business space to access a wider market.
Speaking at the launch of Y’ello Care, MTN Chief Commercial Officer, Saint Hillary, said women are the key pillars that can help in sustainable economic growth, development, and peace.
“Today, more than half of the populations are women, so we cannot, as a human race grow, succeed, and meet all the challenges in life if we don’t empower women, who are half of humanity. So, it’s very central to us,” Mr. Hilary said.
For her part, the executive director of the South Sudan Women Entrepreneurs Association, Ms. Jane Gordon, appreciated MTN’s efforts in training businesswomen on digital skills.
She said now is time for women entrepreneurs to get the training from MTN in order to enable them to sell their products online using their smartphones.
“Now, MTN is going to train them and give them the knowledge so that they can sell their produce better,” Ms. Gordon noted.
“SSWEA also has a center whereby women bring their goods to the shop center to showcase and then get marketed,” she added.
Meanwhile, MTN’s acting Human Resource Manager and Cooperative Services, Mr. Makhosanke, said this is an annual event that the company conducts as a way to give back to the community.
“Y’ello Care is a 21-day event where our own MTN employees go out to the community to support the community,” he explained.
Ms. Arich Baak Kuol, MTN Specialist for Sustainability and Social Impact, said at the end of the campaign, those women will be equipped with the skills they can use to upgrade their marketing.
“After the end of 21 days, these women will have access to online marketing where they will be able to put their produce on MTN because we have a way of advertising those products,” she noted.
Ms. Arich highlighted that they can create social media pages for those women so that they can advertise their products, adding that this can encourage local production rather than relying on imports.
“We are targeting 50 women in this program, and our aim is to make sure that at the end of this program, these businesswomen are skilled up, and their products are skilled up also,” Arich added.
This year’s campaign is organized under the theme “Empowering Women Entrepreneurs to Unlock Community Growth and Job Creation.”
21 Days of Y’ello Care is a group-wide initiative that cuts across all 21 countries where MTN has operations.