This proactive approach which focuses on 'meet and engage' was given fine expression on two different occasions in Kano recently. The first was at a sensitisation programme organised at the premises of "Fara Uwa Association for Women, Divorcees, Widows, orphans and the less privileged" held in Kano on Friday, September 13, 2019.
The association, an umbrella body of over one million divorcees, widows and orphans, was reached by the NCC Zonal Office in Kano (KNZO) to educate its members on ICT and on telecoms in order to gain knowledge and adopt practices that will improve their wellbeing.
The Zonal Office used the opportunity of the forum to educate members of the association on the important ICT skills and also informing them on major interventions introduced by the Commission to mitigate challenges being faced by consumers.
Such interventions include Do-Not-Disturb (DND) 2442 Short code introduced by NCC to stop unsolicited text messages; the 622 Toll-Free number for complaints management, and the 112 Toll-Free number for getting help during emergencies. Members of the Association were also senstised on the dangers of pre-registered and invalidly-registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards.
In the second instance of NCC's proactive approach, the Zonal Office organised meetings with a group of owners of sport viewing centers in Kano and deliberated on ways the Commission could deepen telecoms consumer education by using their platforms to disseminate critical telecoms consumer information when major sporting events are taking place.
Commenting on the collaboration with viewing centre owners, NCC Controller, Kano Zonal Office, Shuaibu Swade, explained that the collaboration gave the zonal office the opportunity to visit three viewing centres where a pilot consumer sensitisation and awareness programme was carried out on September 17 and 18, 2019.
The NCC team was permitted to discuss with viewers before and after the EUFA Champions League match of 17th September 2019 between Liverpool and Napoli as well as the match of 18th September between Real Madrid and PSG.
“We also engaged the youth at the viewing centres during the Europa between Manchester United and Arsenal. In each of the cases, we engaged the youth for few minutes before the commencement of their matches. We basically shared information on the various interventions the Commission has instituted to ease and better consumer experience. After the end of the matches, we projected various NCac consumer information items in drama clips developed at Kano Zonal Office" Swade stated.
Swade concluded that all the engagements were part of the ‘push approach’ employed by KNZO to take consumer education on telecoms-related issues to comfort zones of the consumers for maximum impact.