By Abdul Alli with Knowledge Bylanes
XCMG, China’s leading construction machinery manufacturer, has announced the third stage of its African Water Cellar Projectat Bauma China 2018. The company’s 4.43 million Yuan (US$643,119) joint donation with 26 strategic suppliers will enable to build 80 water cellars in Ethiopia, 40 for families and 40 in schools. This is contained a release made available to Time Nigeria by PRNewswire, a Pakistan based Press Centre.
Established in 2016, XCMG’s water cellar project isone of the 14 in the company’s “For Better Life” global public welfare campaign in partnership with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA). To date, XCMG has built 81 water cellars in Ethiopia that are benefiting 6,700 people, the last 40 of which were completed in Guduru (Kombolcha), Ethiopia in October and are already providing clean drinking and irrigation water to the people there.
“Almost one of every three people in Africadoes not have access to clean water. Waterborne diseases like typhoid fever and cholera can be fatal to children, which is why we want to build water cellars for schools. As a leader in construction machinery industry, XCMG is fully committed to shouldering the responsibility of trying to improve the lives of the people who live in the areas we operate in,” said Xiaohui Xu, GMAssistant of XCMG.
In October, a team visited public primary schools in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, and were astounded by the fact that150 of the 230 schools are not equipped to provide clean water, 90% of the students drink less than 500ml of water a day, and children are getting sickfrom drinking unclean water. Only 2% of the students wash their hands with soap.
To help, XCMG will build 40 school water cellars in Addis Ababa in addition to 40 family water cellars in villages suffering from drought. Each school will be equipped with a 10,000-litre (2,641 U.S. gallon)carbon fiber water tank, VZN water filter, five drinking fountains and five wash basins, which together can provide 1,000 students with water for drinking,cooking and personal hygiene for 2-3 days.
XCMG is a multinational heavy machinery manufacturing company with a history of 74 years. It currently ranks sixth inthe world’s construction machinery industry. The company exports to more than177 countries and regions around the world
