Dangote Granite Mines, a subsidiary of Dangote Group, has awarded scholarships to about 60 students in five host communities.
The company disclosed this in a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Media Personnel, Dangote Industries Ltd., Mr Francis Awowole-Browne.
Awowole-Browne stated that the scholarship was part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility to foster educational development in its host communities.
He noted that the Director of Human Assets Management, Dangote Projects, Mr Ebenezer Ali said the scholarship was meant to help the beneficiaries’ parents lessen the burden their children’s education placed on them.
Ali added that the scholarship was part of the agreements reached with the leadership of the host communities during the signing of the Community Development Agreement.
He said the move was to ensure its host communities were not left behind in areas of education and infrastructural development. Ali urged the beneficiaries to face their education as they would be given automatic employment if they performed well academically.
He thanked the communities’ leaders for creating an atmosphere of peace in the area and for showing the understanding that has led to the tranquility enjoyed by the company and the communities.
He assured the communities of the company’s readiness to do its own part of the agreement in ensuring that it identified with the people at all times.
“I charge the communities’ leaders to continue to support the management of Dangote Granite Mines by maintaining peace,” he said.
An Ijebu Igbo Monarch, the Sopenlukale of Oke Sopen, Oba Adesesan Yussuf, thanked the management of Dangote Group for the assistance rendered to the communities.
The monarch said the scholarship indicated that the company was community friendly and committed to giving back to society hence deserving of all the support the communities could muster.
He urged the beneficiaries not to take the scholarship for granted and see it as a show of love for the host communities.
He advised community members to continue to maintain peace, saying that it was only when there was peace that the company could help the communities better.
One of the beneficiaries, Miss Grace Aregbe of Tai Solarin University of Education, thanked the company for the kind gesture. She said that the scholarship would go a long way in lessening the financial hardship they would encounter in school.
She promised that the beneficiaries would not let down the company and their parents and also prayed for the well-being of the Chairman of the company, Aliko Dangote.
(NAN)
