Rotary Club Appreciates Promasidor for Hospital Equipment Donation

Rotary Club of Apakun in Oshodi Isolo Local Government Area of Lagos State has commended Promasidor Nigeria Limited, makers of Cowbell Milk and other food products, for its support to the club in donating two incubators to the pediatric ward of the Maternal and Child Centre of Isolo General Hospital, to help reduce infant mortality rate in the state.

The company procured the incubators and donated them through the club to the hospital for the benefit of the community.

The president of the club, Rotarian Basil Agbara, after a board meeting of the club on Tuesday 19 July 2011, said that the company has been exceptional in the way it conducts its corporate social responsibility activities.

According to him, “We found a partner in Promasidor because the people there are thinking the way we are thinking. The issue of social responsibility and humanitarian activities is one thing that many organizations are not taking seriously. Rotary Club is a group of professionals all over the world, who want to put something back to the society that has been sustaining us. Now, because we find in Mr. Keith Richards, the company’s managing director, an individual that think like us we drew up a proposal of what we want to do for the society and the company caught the vision fast.”

Chief Agbara said that in coming up with a proposal for the partnership between the club and the company, the club took into considerations the brands produced by Promasidor and discovered that they are children-friendly products.

“We therefore felt that the company would be more interested in projects that sustain children and help reduce the rate of infant mortality in this environment. So we drew up the proposal and they helped us actualize it. It is like a dream come true,” he said.

The incubators were received by the chairman of the governing board of Isolo General Hospital , Dr. Olayide Ogunsulire and its management recently.

According to the medical director of the hospital, Dr. A. O. Ogunlana, who, in a letter to the Lagos State Commissioner of Health, acknowledged the delivery of the incubators: “The incubators have been fixed and are working perfectly.”

Expressing the appreciation of the management of the hospital to the Rotary Club of Apakun, Ogunlana said: “the gesture will go a long way in assisting the hospital to provide quantitative and qualitative healthcare delivery to the babies.”

Promasidor Nigeria Limited provided the incubators as part of its continued bid to reinvest into good causes within communities around the country for a better life among the people.

Promasidor Supports National Association of Social Work Students

Promasidor Nigeria Limited, makers of Cowbell Milk, is collaborating with National Association of Social Work Students (NASWS) under the department of Sociology University of Lagos (UNILAG) to donate the company’s products to care homes in Akoka and Idi-Araba areas of Lagos.

 The products were donated to inmates in Modupe Cole Memorial Child Care & Treatment Home School and Clinic Centre for Handicapped Children, Old People’s Home, Sabo Yaba, Correctional Centre for Boys and Correctional Centre for Girls in Lagos among others.

Mr. Ayodeji Oriyomi, president of the UNILAG branch of NASWS said the association was creating awareness through its maiden event tagged “Care Enough Campaign” to reach out to care homes in its vicinity.

He said the association was partnering with Promasidor to give its products to the care homes in a bid to reach out to them, adding that there is need for more corporate bodies to step up their contributions to the care homes.

He said the UNILAG social work is part of global programme of social work students designed to make them sensitive to the need of the society, especially the vulnerable members.

Mrs. F.A. Durowoju, head teacher of Modupe Cole expressed gratitude for the donation and concern for the privileged children while at the Correctional Centre for Boys, Mr. Ashiyanti Aderinsola, a social welfare officer, said they helped to integrate the inmates back to society through educational and vocational studies.

It will be recalled that Promasidor recently partnered with Orile-Iganmu Progressive Association (OIPA), a community based non-governmental organisation on human capacity development.

The food products firm donated five brand new Intel Pentium flat screen computer systems to the OIPA Training Institute, a free computer training institute established by the organization to enable the youth in the community to be computer literate through the learning of some basic computer courses in a bid to make them ICT compliant.

Promasidor, through its employee volunteer scheme, also supports the organization with its senior management executives facilitating other capacity building training programmes such as entrepreneurial skill training, skill acquisition and seminars/workshops.

Promasidor was incorporated in Nigeria in 1993 to manufacture, package, market and   distribute fast moving consumer products. Since inception, it has been offering quality and affordable products to its consumers.

It revolutionized the dairy industry with the introduction of sachet packaging of its Cowbell milk, a development which has become the norm in the industry presently. Its products range includes Cowbell milk, Cowbell chocolate, Cowbell flavoured milk drink, Loya full cream milk, Miksi, Onga food seasoning, Top Tea and Amila instant fruit flavoured powdered drink.

The company has a factory in Lagos and depots all over the country from where its products are packaged and distributed to consumers nationwide. The company has recorded remarkable growth over the years and it presently employs more than 1,000 Nigerians in various aspects of its operations.

Lagos awards Promasidor best CSR-implementing company

Promasidor Nigeria Limited, makers of Cowbell Milk and other consumer products, has been awarded the Platinum Award in Corporate Social Responsibility by the Lagos State Government.

According to a statement by the company on Thursday, the award, described as a prestigious one, was given to the company for being one of the top brands in CRS under the 2010/2011Youth and Educational Development scheme.

Specifically, the statement said the company clinched the award on account of its contribution to education in the country over the years. Importantly, the award was given as a result of the Cowbell National Secondary Schools Mathematics Competition, which started in 1998 in Lagos.

The statement noted that about 34, 000 students participated in the 2010 edition of the competition across the country, where top brands awards were categorised into three classes; platinum, diamond and gold.

It explained that for an organisation to be recognised under the platinum category, “it must have held the gold award for a minimum of two or three years.”

The state government, according to the statement, made the recognition at the finals of the fourth and fifth edition of the Jam Feast 2011, tagged, “Invention and Entrepreneurship for Self Discovery towards Future Living.”

The Lagos State Ministry of Education organised the event, in conjunction with School Buggies TV Show in Lagos on Thursday.

The new Commissioner of Education, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye, who presented the platinum award to the Managing Director, Promasidor, Chief Keith Richards, was quoted to have said, “Having been recognised as the most Socially Responsible Company at last year’s Social Enterprise Report and Award, Promasidor Nigeria Limited has again been recognised for its contribution to education in Nigeria.”

LASG Confers Prestigious Award on Promasidor for Educational Development

Lagos State Government has conferred a prestigious Platinum Award on Promasidor Nigeria Limited, makers of Cowbell Milk; as one of the top brands in Corporate Social Responsibility 2010/2011on Youth and Educational Development because of its contribution to education in the country over the years.

The award came on the heels of the Cowbell National Secondary Schools Mathematics Competition (NASSMAC) which started in 1998 in Lagos . It expanded the scope to other states between 1999 and 2000 and in 2001 it became a national competition covering the 36 states of the Federation including Abuja . About 34, 000 students participated in the 2010 edition across the country.

The top brands awards are categorized into three: Platinum, diamond and gold.

For an organization to be recognized under the platinum category, which is the highest and the best, such an organization must have held the gold award for a minimum of two-three years with continuum status quo.

The state government made the recognition at the finals of the 4^th and 5^th edition of the Jam Feast 2011 tagged Invention and Entrepreneurship for Self Discovery towards Future Living. The Lagos State Ministry of Education organized the event in conjunction with School Buggies TV Show in Lagos last Thursday.

The new commissioner of education, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye who presented the platinum award to Chief Keith Richards (OBE), managing director of Promasidor noted that, “Having been recognized as the most Socially Responsible Company at last year’s Social Enterprise Report and Award (SERA), Promasidor Nigeria Ltd has again been recognized for its contribution to education in Nigeria over the years.”

According to her, on Friday September 24, Tru-Contact, organizers of SERA, awarded Promasidor the Best Company in Education Prize, adding that the prize was awarded in recognition of the company’s annual Cowbell National Secondary School Mathematics Competition which has lasted 11 years.

The new commissioner, who is a Barrister-at-Law, also remarked that Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), on the eve of the of the nation’s independence anniversary also awarded Promasidor the Friend of the Environment Award, adding that the Isolo Local Council have also further honoured the company by renaming Limca Way to Cowbell Way.

The Jam Feast is an initiative of the Ministry of Education which started in 2007 and it was designed to educate young people (in school) about health issues, such as HIV/AIDS and other related diseases in a bid to establish healthy patterns from their formative age.

The programme also seeks to unlock the potentials of the knowledge triangle by striking the right balance between the scientific/educational excellence and innovation/business acumen as tools to re-direct and give options to young people.

In a goodwill message, Chief Keith Richards, managing director of Promasidor said the company would continue to support education and families in Lagos and Nigeria with its products.

He said the company has just completed the Cowbell National Secondary Schools Mathematics Competition (NASSMAC) in which 34,000 students participated nationwide, remarking that Mathematics is the foundation of education.

Apparently to underscore his passion for education, Richards said his mom and dad were teachers and he also had his first degree in education. He said it was his wish that the future winners of NASSMAC would come from among the students who are participating in Jam Feast.

Starcomms Offers Replacement for Damaged Phones at half Price

Leading telecommunications operator, Starcomms Plc, has taken further step towards ensuring that its customers enjoy the best of good products and quality service by providing a platform for them to replace their faulty or damaged phone with brand new ones.

The phone replacement offer is available only to all Starcomms customers, who had bought and had been using their phones before they became faulty or damaged and now want the phones replaced. They can now exchange them for Starcomms Hisense C118 phones colour screen and FM radio at half its price. Or get any other phone of their choice that is available in the store at 15 per cent discount. 

The chief operating officer of Starcomms, Logan Pather at the head office of the company disclosed that “as a listening network, we understand the yearnings of our various customers and we have resolved to keep making positive impact on their lives by providing a platform for them to continue to be active on the network and enjoy the unique values we offer our customers”.

He further said that the AWUFF PLUS tariff plan is the best tariff in the market where Starcomms customers can call anyone on the Starcomms network with only N100/day and call other networks at 20k/sec from the very first second.

To benefit from this offer and continue to enjoy the best of tariff, customers are expected to hand in their old phones bought at any Starcomms shop to be replaced with new Hisense C118 phones with free Removable User Identity Module (RUIM) card at a fantastic discount of 50 per cent. Also, customers who are returning their phones must recharge their line with one thousand Naira worth of airtime.

Hisense C118 comes in handy and has built-in personalised special features such as RUIM port, polyphonic ring tones, speed dial and others touch of the button features that make communications pleasurable to users.

According to Pather, the phone replacement offer will be on for a period of six weeks during which customers will have the opportunity to reactivate their old Starcomms phone/line if it is has been inactive and start enjoying the best of product and service from Starcomms.

He added that, just recently, the company concluded “Data Modem Exchange Offer” to all Starcomms’ internet service subscribers in the country, a plan that allowed  lower grade or old models of modems users to upgrade to Starcomms iZAP, an enhanced version of Rev. A Ev Do internet USB modems at half the cost.

 He further re-iterated that Starcomms will continue to come up with top rated innovations that offer value for money in order to bring an equal satisfaction to all categories of customers on its network. 

Starcomms, Mach Win 2011 Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award

Starcomms Plc, Nigeria’s leading telecommunications operator in partnership with Mach, a major provider of hub-based mobile communication solutions have won the Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award 2011 for best wireless network infrastructure innovation.

The award which was organized in Luxembourg, Germany recognized the duo’s successful collaboration in testing and subsequently delivering the world's first inter-standard roaming data service for pre-paid subscribers, having extended the functionality from a post-paid
environment.

Alan Burkitt-Gray, editor of Global Telecoms Business, who presented the award said: "This is the fifth time we've run the Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards and this year we saw more nominations, from a greater range of operators and vendors, than ever before.”

The editor who said this was a sure sign the industry is working harder and harder to deliver exciting and innovative services to customers worldwide congratulated all who won this year's awards, especially Mach and Starcomms for the first pre-paid inter-standard roaming data service successfully trialed.

Logan Pather, Chief Operating Officer, Starcomms, commented: “We are delighted to have won this award in partnership with Mach. Pre-paid roaming is a strong growth area for Starcomms and Africa in general but has traditionally been difficult to monetise successfully given the complexity of the technology and the associated cost.”

According to him Mach delivered a world-first hub-based solution that provides them with a larger footprint for pre-paid data roaming across different technologies and removed the complexity associated with inter-standard roaming.

He added that for the first time, inter-standard data roaming has become a realistic revenue stream for Starcomms and provides it with significant competitive advantage in the roaming market. With this service Starcomms customers can use their mobile phone service overseas outside of Nigeria to make and receive voice calls, and also send and receive SMS whilst abroad. Customers interested in the service simply need to visit the nearest Starcomms shop to subscribe for it.

Lokdeep Singh, Vice President, Technology and Innovation, Mach, notes: "We are proud to have won this prestigious industry award. The recognition is a testament to our continuous commitment to innovation and firmly positions Mach as the leader in the inter-standard pre-paid roaming market.”

He added that Inter-Standard Roaming managed services solutions offered a more efficient and value-added approach to delivering a seamless extension of operators' home networks, without the capital and operational costs - unlocking new revenue opportunities for operators and providing cost-effective convenience for their
customers.

The inter-standard roaming data service is a project which involved the trialing and deploying of a solution which allows simple and seamless inter-standard roaming for Starcomms' pre-paid subscribers, providing them with full access to the data services they wish to consume abroad, while simultaneously opening up the rewards of the
pre-paid data roaming market to the operator.

The trial was successful in resolving a major industry problem, by neutralising pre-paid protocols and the resulting solution. The Mach Data Roaming Engine provides support for pre-paid data inter-working between different technologies by converting the various network protocols used by home and visited networks.

Promasidor Partners Orile-Iganmu Youth on Capacity Development

Promasidor Nigeria Limited, makers of Cowbell Milk, is partnering with Orile-Iganmu Progressive Association (OIPA), a community based non-governmental organisation on human capacity development.

Towards this end, the food products firm has donated five brand new Intel Pentium flat screen computer systems to the OIPA Training Institute, a free computer training institute established by the organization to enable the youth in the community to be computer literate through the learning of some basic computer courses in a bid to make them ICT compliant.

Promasidor, through its employee volunteer scheme, also supports the organization with its senior management executives facilitating other capacity building training programmes such as entrepreneurial skill training, skill acquisition and seminars/workshops.

Addressing graduands and well wishers at the sixth graduation ceremony of the Free Computer Skill Acquisition Programme in Lagos last week, Mr. Kingsley Omose, chairman of the board of trustees of OIPA said, all the association has achieved is by forging a close relationship with notable people like Chief Keith Richards, managing director and chief executive of Promasidor among others.

Omose, a Barrister-at-Law noted, “Keith Richards had been a friend of the community even before he became the managing director of Promasidor,” adding that “presently Promasidor and its executives have become our friends.”

 Mr. Olabode Medale, president of OIPA said they are grateful and shall continue to appreciate Promasidor’s strive towards making life meaningful to the downtrodden masses of their community.

Miss Aminat Adizat who emerged overall best among the 106 graduands went home with a brand new desk top computer with CPU and a printer. The programme is organized twice a year.

 Besides Cowbell Milk, Promasidor also manufacture and market Cowbell Choco, Loya Milk, Miksi, Onga food seasoning, Amila instant fruit drink and Top Tea among others.

 Since 1993, the company has been enriching, caring and adding value to the lives of millions of Nigerians by innovatively providing them the opportunity to purchase products which hitherto were out of their reach.

 The company has achieved tremendous growth since it commenced operations and presently employs more than 1,000 people across the country.

It has a packaging plant and other depots in Nigeria from where its range of products are packaged and distributed.

 

Starcomms Celebrates Customers at Interactive Dinner

Furtherance to its commitment to listening constantly to its valued customers, the management of Starcomms Plc hosted some of them to a sumptuous dinner in Lagos at the end of June, appreciating them for their loyalty and continued patronage and seeking to know from them how the company could serve them better.

The Starcomms team, which included the Chief Operating Officer, Logan Pather and the Chief Financial Officer, David Ordman expressed the desire of the company to discover the needs of its customers through such interactive sessions so that solutions can be proffered without delay.

The COO, Mr. Pather, addressing the customers said that Starcomms always considered everybody on its network as a member of its family and decided that on a monthly basis some customers would be invited to dinner so that the company would not just mean a phone or modem to them, while they themselves would mean more than numbers to the
company but real people who have relationships and are supporting each
other to improve mutual experiences.

Some of the fêted customers have been using Starcomms voice and/or data services since the inception of the company while some of them recently joined the network and have remained consistent in their patronage. The customers in attendance were able to bare their minds on various issues concerning their interaction with the networks such
as: the models of the devices they use; their preferred customer service personnel and even the company’s branding as well as its brand ambassador Nneka.

A number of the customers present at the event expressed their satisfaction especially at Starcomms izap, the network’s award-winning internet service that has been adjudged the best in Nigeria’s telecommunications market. Some of them were impressed about
Starcomms’ branding efforts as a listening network, giving kudos to some of the customer service personnel of the company who they know by name.

They all said that the gathering has helped them to understand Starcomms, their preferred network better, and they hoped that their suggestions and words of encouragement would help the company to remain ahead of its competitors in offering innovative products and
valuable services.

One of the customers in attendance at the dinner, Mr Eyo Paul Eyo, an accountant and mortgage banker who has been on Starcomms’ network since year 2000 said that the initiative of Starcomms to have dinner with its customer was a wonderful move by the company which he believed will help the company to know the areas where customers are having challenges and the areas where they are satisfied. According to
him, it will also encourage the customers to remain loyal to the network, knowing that their network providers listen to their challenges

“I am greatly impressed,” he said.

Also, David Okpara of Q-Life Family Clinic was pleased with the event.

“It was the least of my expectation. It is a really good thing. It raises the way I feel about Starcomms when I have the opportunity to talk with top management of the company. It fosters direct relationship and it will help the company to improve on its services.

All the customers at the event went home with a gift of Starcomms’ portable Wi-Fi router, which can simultaneously give Internet access to multiple Wi-Fi enabled devices.

“It is most encouraging and rewarding, It is a way of saying thank you” said Kingsley Aligwo, a Starcomms customer since 1999.