More than 900 employees of Nigeria’s leading Insurance Company, AXA Mansard employees, have volunteered fordifferent activities to combat the scourge of domestic and sexual violence against children. In commemoration of their annual social responsibility week, AXA Week for Good, hundreds of the company’s employees visited various schools across Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, educating students and teachers on the identification, prevention, and reporting of sexual and domestic violence.
AXA Week for Good is the flagship volunteering programme of AXA Hearts In Action (AHIA), a programme through which AXA encourages its employees to contribute to positive societal and environmental impacts through volunteering, expertise, related financial support, and in-kind donations.
Through the AHIA, our employees do not just give time to great causes; we work together for a better future. We share our knowledge and expertise as a people with a shared purpose of acting for human progress by protecting what matters by helping vulnerable communities and people around us,” said Rashidat Adebisi, Chief Client Officer, AXA Mansard.
Under the theme “Being a Girl Shouldn’t Be A Risk,” AXA Mansard employees participated in awareness walks to sensitize the public about the danger of domestic and sexual violence on children and the nation’s future.
According to Adebisi, this theme presents the organization with an opportunity to demonstrate the social, economic, and ethical benefits of protecting the girl child. She said Nigeria’s 105 million children and adolescents aged 0–17 years represent about half of the country’s population.
“For a country betting its economic growth on the strength and human capital of its young population, the alarming rate and spate of Violence Against Children (VAC) threaten the future not just of our country, but of the African continent.”
She noted that the staggering reality that 60% of Nigerian children experience one or more forms of violence before age 18 is a call to action for everyone, and “our employees are responding to this clarion call so that the thousand of Nigerian girls who go through physical, emotional, sexual and psychological violence can find safe places to get help; but most important, we can rid our society of perpetrators,” she furthered.
In 2024, more than 50% of AXA Mansard employees, through various volunteering activities under the AHIA, clocked over 23,000 volunteering hours.
