Ime Akpan
United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has said that its Foundation is committed to impacting the lives of the African youth across the continent.
UBA’s head of human resources, Mrs. Patricia Aderibigbe, stated this in Lagos on Monday when the bank joined the rest of the world to commemorate the 2019 International Day of the African Child.
The day which has set aside by the United Nations to celebrate children in Africa, recognises the courage of students from numerous Sowetan schools in South Africa who protested in the streets of Soweto on June 16, 1976 against the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools
The UBA Foundation brought together students from various secondary schools in Lagos to the Tony Elumelu Amphitheatre at the UBA Head Office at Marina Lagos, where they were educated on various issues, ranging from financial literacy, importance of reading culture and nation building.
Some schools which were represented at the event included Akande Dahunsi Memorial High School, Lagos; Government Senior College, Maroko, Aunty Ayo International School Ikoyi and Wahab Folawiyo Senior High School, Ikoyi.
Aderibigbe said who welcomed the students, said the UBA centres on the tripod of education, empowerment and environment.
She said the bank recognizes the tremendous role that education and indeed a good reading culture has to play in the lives of the youth.
“The UBA Foundation is committed to impacting the lives of the African youth across the continent. As a pan-African institution, we believe that the future of Africa lies in her youth. For this reason, UBA Foundation is actively involved in facilitating educational projects and bridging the literacy-wide gap on a pan-African scale.
“The UBA Foundation is helping rekindle the dwindling reading and literacy culture amongst African youths as they pursue their education. Over time we have worked with various schools and educational institutions across the continent to ensure that the UBA Foundation continues to traverse the continent, contributing positively to the development of African youth, especially in the area of education,” she added.
Furthermore, she said bank through its Foundation, aims to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the needy and under-privileged by supporting entrepreneurship programmes such as social entrepreneurship schemes which benefit the community at large.
For his part, the chief credit officer of UBA Africa, Mr. Franklin Erebor, spoke on financial literacy and the need to plan for the future.
“You are not too young to start to plan for the future, as what you do now when you are young will impact greatly on you later in live. So it is essential that you have an account which should be well monitored to ensure that it fulfills the purpose.
“You need to be financially literate, as this will help to open your eyes to the opportunities inherent and help you make wise decisions to benefit from the investments,” he told the students.
The UBA top officials had a brief reading session where they read to the students and engaged them in reading a number of passages from select reading materials.
