In demonstration of its commitment to make sustainable living commonplace, Unilever Nigeria PLC. employees have partnered RecyclePoint and Polly Alakija to create a sustainable environment for children of Ken-Ade Private school, Makoko, Lagos.
The tripartite partnership started with a sanitation exercise at the school premises and was followed up with building a borehole and a fence for the school.
Speaking on the partnership, the Marketing Director Foods, Unilever Ghana Nigeria, Ogedi-Alakwe Nsima, said that this is a furtherance of Unilever’s Perfect City Community outreach initiative to Ken-Ade Private School in Makoko. Perfect City is one of Unilever’s initiative to drive Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP). “Through this initiative, we leverage on community insights to drive inclusive market growth and development while improving livelihood and wellbeing through our brands. In demonstration of this, we have spent quality time at the school to clean the premises. We have also built a borehole and a fence to make the environment hygienic and suitable for learning for the children.”
The highpoint of the partnership was a creative art/painting session with Polly Alakija. The session tagged, ‘Empower the next Picasso’ saw the children using Unilever’s product wrappers to make artworks of different sharps and sizes. The wrappers were gathered through an internal campaign that encouraged employees to bring their product wrappers to work for the this purpose.
Speaking at the creative art/painting session, The Sustainable Business Manager, Ghana Nigeria, Ayodele Aburo, said, “this has revealed that by creating the right environment and providing support through basic amenities and mentorship, every child can discover their talent that would help them achieve their full potential.”
“While on the one hand they were having fun playing with wrappers of our products, on the other hand they demonstrated their creativity by turning those wrappers to artwork designs of Nigerian map and globe-like objects.” She said.
Speaking further Aburo said that from simple paintings, they turned their school wall to graffiti with a message of hands and oral hygiene – that reminds them to constantly wash their hands and brush twice daily to stay healthy always.
On her part, the Perfect City Manager, Customer Development, Unilever Nigeria, Nnenna Ikpeme, said, “looking back at the sojourn, we count ourselves privileged and grateful to have worked with our partners; RecyclePoint, Polly Alakija and volunteers to make our little contribution of making the school environment safer and heathier for the children. Together, we have demonstrated that we can bring to life our vision of making Sustainable Living Commonplace.”
