Safaricom - 2020 Sustainable Business Report

65 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS OUR STAKEHOLDERS CONCLUDING REMARKS Education: M-PESA Foundation Academy achieves impressive results The M-PESA Foundation Academy offers a platform for economically disadvantaged students from across the country, with learners joining in Form One offered full, four-year scholarships. This year the school has admitted 96 students into Form One. The Academy posted impressive results in its maiden KCSE examinations during the year, achieving a mean grade of B-, with top student Abigael Kadogo emerging 16 th nationally and all 91 candidates attaining entry grades to institutions of higher learning. Seven students are also currently studying in the United States after getting fully paid scholarships. In January 2020, the M-PESA Foundation Academy launched an 11-month post-high school programme for its 91 Form Four leavers. The programme will be hosted at the newly launched Uongozi Center, located inside the Academy, will not only give the students an opportunity to define their career and entrepreneurial choices beyond the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations, but will also help prepare them for leadership roles in their various interests and sectors. Empowerment: Wezesha – unlocking the potential of the Kenyan youth Th Safaricom Foundation has partnered with Generation Kenya and CloudFactory Kenya in a youth unemployment initiative that arms young people with sought-after, highly useful IT skills. Potential candidates undergo a competitive interview proces to secure places on a two-week intensive digital training course run by CloudFactory Kenya. Since January 2019, the Academy has graduated over 600 young people equipped with digital skills that can fast track their entry into jobs and careers, and the Foundation provides funding for laptops as part of the student scholarships. Health: Afya-Uzazi Salama in Lamu County The Safaricom Foundation Afya-Uzazi Salama programme is a partnership with PharmAccess Foundation that focuses on improving health service delivery infrastructure, building skills of health workers, enhancing community-based information and education, and health care financing. Through Afya-Uzazi Salama, eight of the thirteen community health units in Lamu County have been revived. Additionally, 220 community health volunteers (CHVs) have been re-trained on maternal and pregnancy care family planning, data collection, entry, and monitoring. Once dispatched, the volunteers complete their rounds and report findings every month to the community health extension worker (CHEW), who is based at the health facility. In six months, the minimal reporting rate had increased dramatically to more than 80 per cent, with encouraging results. The communities have benefitted from maternal, new- born and child health services, such as growth monitoring, immunisation, nutrition, family planning, cancer screening and treatment of other conditions that threaten the well-being of the mother and child. Outreach activities are now conducted countywide, especially in hard-to-reach areas. Most importantly, local dispensaries and hospitals have witnessed increased numbers of patients, all due to the referral system that has been introduced. Sinambio Dispensary in Lamu West, for instance, served 159 women attending antenatal clinics between July and September 2019. Nearly all deliveries now happen at the better equipped Mpeketoni Sub-District Hospital.