By David Akinmola
In a renewed push to raise awareness about child abuse and gender-based violence, AXA Mansard Insurance Plc has mobilised more than 1,000 employee volunteers across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt to promote the prevention, identification and reporting of domestic and sexual violence.
The intervention, organised under the company’s AXA Week for Good initiative, took awareness campaigns directly into communities through door-to-door engagements, sensitisation sessions, educational conversations and advocacy activities.
The campaign, held under the theme, “Being a Child Shouldn’t Be a Risk,” focused on the vulnerability of children and women to abuse, particularly in environments traditionally regarded as safe, including homes and communities.
The initiative forms part of AXA’s global employee volunteering programme under the AXA Hearts in Action platform, through which employees across its markets contribute their time, resources and expertise to social causes.
Speaking on the campaign, Chief Executive Officer, AXA Mansard Health, Tope Adeniyi, said businesses must go beyond providing commercial services to contribute to the wellbeing and safety of the communities in which they operate.
He said: “AXA Week for Good is a global expression of who we are as a Group, but in Nigeria, it must also speak to the realities around us. Far too many children still live with the threat or experience of violence, and too many cases remain hidden in silence.”
According to him, as a company built around protection, AXA Mansard has a responsibility not only to insure lives and livelihoods but also to support conversations and actions capable of making society safer and more humane.
Adeniyi said the high level of employee participation demonstrated that staff members increasingly identify with causes that extend beyond the workplace.
“What is especially meaningful is that our employees chose to show up in large numbers for this cause. That says something important about our culture. It says we are building an organisation where people care deeply, not only about performance, but also about impact,” he said.
The campaign comes against the backdrop of persistent concerns over violence against women and children in Nigeria, with stakeholders continuing to call for greater awareness, early identification of abuse, effective reporting mechanisms and stronger institutional responses.
For insurers and other businesses whose operations are built around the concept of protection and risk management, the growing emphasis on social protection also provides an opportunity to extend corporate responsibility beyond financial risk to broader community resilience.
Also speaking, Chief Marketing Officer, AXA Mansard, Adebola Surakat, said the campaign was designed to combine AXA’s global purpose with the realities confronting Nigerian communities.
“At AXA, protection is not an abstract idea. It is about helping people live with greater dignity, confidence and safety. This is why AXA Week for Good matters to us. It allows us to extend our values beyond business and into society in visible, practical ways,” she said.
Surakat said the company was deliberately sustaining the conversation because social change requires consistency.
The 2026 campaign builds on AXA Mansard’s 2025 initiative, which focused on the them “Being a Girl Shouldn’t Be a Risk.”
She said the company wanted Nigerians to see AXA Mansard not only as an insurance and healthcare provider but also as an organisation willing to understand social challenges and contribute to addressing them.
The week-long activities culminated in a commemorative walk across participating locations, reinforcing the message that tackling abuse and violence requires collective action from families, institutions, employers and communities.
The company said employee participation in its volunteering activities has also grown significantly. In 2025, more than 90 per cent of AXA Mansard employees participated in various volunteering initiatives, contributing over 3,000 volunteer hours to social causes.
The stronger turnout recorded this year, it said, further demonstrates the role of employee engagement in driving corporate social impact.
As AXA Week for Good continues across AXA markets globally, the company said its Nigerian operations would continue to prioritise social causes that are closely linked to local realities and capable of generating lasting value for communities.
