Over 1.8M Subscribers Support MTN 1GOAL: Education for All Campaign

MTN has registered over 1.8 million SMS petitions for 1GOAL: Education for All campaign.
This figure was recorded after MTN subscribers in Africa and the Middle East heeded a call to support the FIFA-endorsed campaign to accelerate universal access to education.
1GOAL is a 2010 FIFA World Cup legacy initiative where MTN and other partners, including world leaders, international football stars and education champions, mobilize the public to petition governments to meet their United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) target of providing universal access to education to 72 million children worldwide by 2015. 
In support of this initiative, MTN launched an SMS campaign in May to collect a million text messages from its 129 million subscribers across its operations to petition their governments to act on their commitment to accelerate the provision of quality education.
 Ms Nozipho January-Bardill, MTN Group Corporate Affairs Executive, said “We are delighted at the overwhelming response we have received on this campaign, and would like to extend our gratitude to our subscribers and everyone who participated in this noble cause.
“Access to education is a basic human right that we all cannot afford to deprive our children of. It is a solution which we believe can help alleviate poverty and underdevelopment in Africa and other developing regions. As the first and only African global sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™, MTN’s participation in 1GOAL has given expression to the objective of leaving a lasting legacy that will endure long after the football festivities are over” .
Post the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the Global Campaign for Education and its member national coalitions are continuing the campaign until they present the petition to the world leaders in September this year.
World leaders are meeting next month to discuss their ongoing commitments to Education for All, and the 1GOAL Mobile Campaign will enable tens of millions of people to let world leaders know that universal education for all can help end world poverty.
Subscribers who have participated in this campaign join a hugely impressive list of football players, celebrities and world leaders who have already pledged their support for 1GOAL, including Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah, Aaron Mokoena, Matthew Booth and Nwankwo Kanu.
As a testimony of its ongoing commitment to 1GOAL, MTN set up two public viewing facilities in the run-up to and during the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa at Montecasino in  Johannesburg and V&A Waterfront in Cape Town where football fans paid a nominal entry fee to watch the FIFA World Cup games. These sites were part of the free public viewing sites dotted across the country.
A total of R550 000 generated from the gate takings has since been donated to 1GOAL and United Against Malaria (UAM), – a coalition of football stars, NGO’s, corporates and celebrities that aims to combat malaria. Both 1GOAL and UAM have each received R275 000 generated from the gate takings.