Union Bank charity initiative gives joy to communities

By Cosmas Omegoh

Union Bank Plc and its employees recently celebrated their Employee Volunteer Day (EV Day) with a series of targeted charitable donations and projects aimed at improving the lives of Nigerians.

 The initiative is in line with the bank’s efforts at driving sustainable impact and accelerating community development.

EVDay is an employee-funded initiative that allows Union Bank and its employees the opportunity to give something back to the community through various projects and activities that drive positive social change.

The latest in the series tagged: “It Starts With U,” involved a bottom-up approach where employees were encouraged to identify needs within their host communities that required timely attention after which they pooled resources to solve some of the identified problems in their areas.

Through the initiative, it was learnt, 20 impactful projects were executed and commissioned in different communities across three regions in the country. The

Projects, which directly impacted over 253,000 people, were centred around creating strategic development with focus on health and wellness, environmental sanitation, education and welfare in Nigeria.

Three projects were executed and commissioned in the South West region where Bolade Jegede, Regional Executive for South West, led the team of Union Bank volunteers to Island Maternity Hospital, Lagos where they donated medical equipment to the Neonatal Unit to support existing facilities and help reduce neonatal mortality rate which is currently about 25% of the death toll for age 5 and below.

In the South East region, a total of eight projects were implemented across various states. Rosemary David-Etim, Regional Executive of the region led a team of over 100 employee volunteers to commission the renovated toilet facility at Comprehensive Secondary School Douglas Road, Owerri, Imo State to support the governments’ efforts towards preventing pupils from contacting or spreading germs and infectious diseases which is now a national concern as only 10% of Nigerian schools have basic hygiene services, including toilets.

Nine projects were also commissioned in different locations across the northern region. The regional executive, Fatai Baruwa, represented by Helen Okene, and other UBN Employee Volunteers carried out environmental sanitation in Dei-Dei

Building Market, Abuja, and donated waste bins to the market traders to improve waste collection and disposal within the market.