Nairobi, Kenya 15 February 2011…Airtel Kenya today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Education. The MOU will see the Company fund the rehabilitation of infrastructure at Kipeto Primary Schools in Kajiado District.

Airtel is working in collaboration with the Ministry of Education to complete the all round improvement of the school over the next 2 years including construction and renovation of classrooms, rehabilitation of boreholes, provision of desks and other educational support on a need basis.

The MOUs were signed by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Prf. Ole Kiyapi who expressed his Ministry’s appreciation of the initiative, commending Airtel for its contribution. He also urged other corporations and the Private sector in general to join the development of education in Kenya.

Our engagement in the development of education in Kenya is in line with Bharti Airtel’s Corporate Social Responsibility vision to uplift the standard of living in the communities through the improvement of infrastructure in the institutions, ensuring access to better quality education for the children and communities in general, said the company’s chief operating officer, Shivan Bhargava.

Airtel Kenya also supports infrastructural improvement programs in Nyamira Girls School in Bondo,

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Editor’s notes;

1.       Bharti Airtel has undertaken several new initiatives since 2010 in the social welfare space while strengthening existing projects to ensure inclusive growth and positive impact in society. In the last one year, the company has extended its initiative of providing quality education to underprivileged children to the 16 African countries it operates in. Bharti Airtel is adopting at least one primary school in each of these 16 countries.

2.       Kipeto Primary school is located 70 kms away from Nairobi, has had sanitation problems and poor sanitation that resulted in low attendance of pupils. Airtel adopted Kipeto School in October 2010 and has improved sanitation in the facility through the rehabilitation of a borehole that had been dormant for over four years. This borehole is now serves the community by providing water for their animals, access to safe drinking wa­ter for their households and also acts as a direct supply of water for the school.

3.       Kipeto Primary School had an enrolment of 345 pupils by the time of adoption in 2010, and this number has been stead­ily growing mainly driven by the access to the improved facilities at the school which provide a better learning environment for the pupils perform better.

1. The two year agreement will see Airtel carry out the following activities will be under the ‘School Adoption Program;

• Rehabilitation of borehole(s).
• Rehabilitation of ablution facilities.
• Construction of Six (6) classrooms.
• Renovation of Six (6) existing classrooms.
• Provision of desks and filing cabinets for storage of books.
• Provision of mid-day meals on a need basis.

·         Other educational support on a need basis.

About Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading integrated telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 5 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G & 3G mobile services, fixed line, high speed broadband through DSL, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G & 3G mobile services. Bharti Airtel had over 244 million customers across its operations at the end of January 2012. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com