Patrick Yeboah
Voltic Ghana Limited – a water bottling company – has handed over retail shops to two widows in Kumasi as part of its women empowerment project aimed at empowering women to gain social and economic freedom.
The beneficiaries are Doris Bilson and Rose Owusu Sarfo, who have been living on the benevolence of friends and neighbours after their husbands passed on to eternity.
They were taken through a month-long financial literacy and basic customer care service training before two shops fully stocked with Voltic products were handed over to them as seed funds for retailing business.
Speaking at the handover ceremony, Patrick Yeboah, Regional Manager in charge of Northern Territory, said the Voltic Women Empowerment programme forms part of the company’s corporate social responsibility initiatives anchored on 3Ws – Women Empowerment, Water Stewardship and Waste Management.
Mr. Yeboah said empowering women into financial freedom goes beyond donation, and that the company has also invested time and efforts into training the beneficiaries to make them women of substance. According to him, the economic support is one of the key values of Voltic.
The beneficiaries expressed gratitude to the company for the economic support and pledged to demonstrate the financial skills acquired to sustain the business and be mentors to others in their communities.
The event coincided with Voltic’s Customer Engagement programme to reward and appreciate the hard work of its business partners in the sachet water value chain.
Mr. Yeboah said: “The company intends to support local franchises to produce and sell affordable, quality drinking water after having transformed the sachet water industry with its ‘Cool Pac’ water”.
“Voltic will continue to partner other organisations to find sustainable ways of helping to improve livelihoods of its customers, suppliers and employees while championing its 3Ws on CSR,” he added.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi