Discussions on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) permeate all aspects of human life but the religious domain is often ignored. With the creation of Church/Christian Social Responsibility, a CSR unit of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), religious organisations appear to recognise their roles in human and environmental development of the areas where they operate, write ADEDEJI ADEMIGBUJI and DAVID ADEJO.
Globalisation has influenced churches to be more committed to the social, economic, health and environmental concerns of their members. The government has failed to address some social needs, which dampened social values of citizens. So, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is crossing the border of corporate organisations, perching on the altar of religious institutions.
By implication, churches have found it worthwhile as a strategy to impact on the society without losing their primary objective-preaching salvation and making heaven. With armies of unemployed graduates, employed, poor populace, among other issues, who seek solutions from divinity, churches are beginning to explore CSR engagement tool as buffer for their congregations.
To enhance better coordination of what some religious scholars also termed, Christian Coporate Social Responsibility (CCSR), some churches, especially those with highest congregation, now set up CSR/Sustainability departments to bind both faith in God and work for the betterment of the society beyond just feeding them with words of God.
During a recent programme, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Province 58, Ikorodu, Lagos organised an empowerment programme for its church members in demonstration of care for the people who are swamped by social-economic challenges to deal with.
After assessing their needs, the church paraded high profile human capacity development and empowerment professionals from the Bank of Industry (BoI), Fidelity Bank, Capacity Development and Skills Enhancement agencies to empower the church members in other to be job creators.
The Chief Consultant, Capacity Development and Skills Enhancement, an NGO, Odewunmi Olatunji, said the CSR programme of the church had over 700 people who are learning various skills. He said some of them have learnt the business and art of bag making, shoe making, hair making, cinematography, make-ups, gele tying, manicure and pedicure, events management and decoration, catering, among others.
He said the church has trained over 20,000 people since 2011 when the programme was introduced, adding that records have shown that most of them are doing well in their businesses.
Explaining the rationale behind the empowerment programme, the Pastor-in-Charge of the province, Pastor Godwin Obadun, said the buy-in into CSR was occasioned by the state of the economy as a measure to reduce poverty in the country. “We have looked at the situation around us, the only thing we feel we can do to stop poverty is to enhance them with skills that will make them producers and service providers. This is why we have put together this two-week tuition free programme. The General Overseer, Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye, is the owner of this vision. He said: ‘Go out, don’t only preach the gospel, put something in their hands, let them have a job’ and this is what we are trying to do,” he said.
He said further that the church also partnered with BoI to provide access to loans for startups after the training. “We have invited them because in some other programmes we have gone to, after training, the participants don’t have money or the capacity, or tools. We have, however, gone a step further by bringing in the BoI. We have given them tools. There is no way they can liaise with BoI without having an account with a commercial bank, and Fidelity Bank, as we all know, is a leading SME bank in Nigeria. So, we also brought them in to support. The people will not just learn the skills, but also have access to funds so they can start something. We are grateful to BoI and Fidelity Bank for coming. They have also promised to assist everyone,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Regional Head of BoI, Mr. Ubaro Marvel Usah,who was at the event, said the bank is ready to support anyone after the training in other to grow the economy and reduce poverty.
”We are here on the invitation of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). They are having an empowerment programme to educate their members. They want to educate their members on the available products that BoI has which can be used to support their members in terms of empowerment and how we can provide financial support for their teeming members. So, essentially, we are here to tell them the products that are available for SME within BoI, then the requirements of Bank Support Scheme under each of the schemes that we have, and then what we can do to work with them to go and develop business so that we can develop our economy jointly and collectively,” he said.
Besides BoI, the church also brought Fidelity Bank to ease access to loans for the trainees. One of the managers of SMEs for Fidelity Bank, Banksharon Nwaneri, assured the bank also intends to support the church’s CSR drive by getting the understanding that they can receive support to start up.
“There is what we call commercial support overdraft. It provides short-term loans which last for about 30 days and a very market- friendly interest rate that we can make available. We also have the commercial support loan which lasts for 90 days. Then, we have our commercial credit facility that can run for about one year to expand their businesses.
Then they can also access our CBN intervention funds which we work massively in,” she explained.
One of the beneficiaries of the training, who preferred to be called by her first name, Kafayat, said though she doesn’t attend the church, she found the programme impactful.
She said with the training, she can now be her own boss. “I heard about this programme from a friend. I am not a Christian or a member of this church. I came for the registration on Monday (this week), we started the training and now I can do some beads to sell. I also like it because we have the opportunity to borrow from the bank, soft loans with no collateral and little interest to pay,” she said.
In the light of this, a Journal of Business Management and Economics stated the contribution from religious angle is few and peripheral. “Discussions on CSR permeate all aspect of human life –social, economic and environmental domains, but the religious domain is often ignored, perhaps based on the belief that social domain covers religion. The diverse and overlapping debate on CSR is so intense that it elicited criticism that ‘the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a religion filled with priests,” the journal stated.
However, scholars said exploring CSR from religious lenses is justified because religion is now becoming a tool by governments across the world to elicit support for policies and for shaping people’s worldviews.
