Article: Tullow Oil wins CSR Sustainability Project Award Date: May 2010 Location: Uganda
Tullow Oil Uganda has won an East African Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Sustainability Project Award. The awards are granted for good CSR practice in developing countries. The awards are in partnership with the East African Business Council and are the first to celebrate excellent corporate social responsibility by Burundian, Kenyan, Rwandan, Tanzanian and Ugandan businesses.
Tullow won under the category of ‘Most sustainable and scalable community investment’. The award recognises the ‘best in class’ community investment based on the number of people benefitting from the investment, level of improvements in livelihoods, the sustainability of the project and the benefits to both the community and the company. Tullow submission was the ‘Tullow Kaiso – Tonya programme’. Under the programme Tullow opened up roads to previously remote areas, exposing the communities to the world of commerce, supported education and upgraded a former maternity centre to a full health facility serving communities beyond the area of oil exploration.
Tullow’s support to education was via the Tullow Oil Link Community Development Schools Improvement Project (TOLSIP). This is a partnership between Tullow Oil Uganda and Link Community Development Uganda. The project aims to improve the quality of education provided to pupils attending eight selected schools in the Tullow Oil area of operation in Hoima and Buliisa Districts. The project also aims at providing a model for corporate social responsibility in support of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in Uganda. The activities carried out under the project included:
The School Performance Review
Training of lower primary teachers in Literacy
Training of School Management Committees (SMCs) in Enhanced Community Participation in Education
District capacity building, training and support.
The project directly benefited 5,000 pupils in Kaiso, Kyehooro, Nkondo, Toonya Primary schools in Hoima district, and Bugana, Butiaba, Kakoora and Avogera Primary Schools in Buliisa district. The other beneficiaries from the project included: School Management Committee members (72), head teachers and deputy head teachers (16), Lower Primary school teachers (16) and District officials.