China helping quench kids’ thirst in Kenya
Donation to isolated school credited with firing new enthusiasm for learning
NAIROBI — Titus Nzasi has always believed that investing in roads, water, education and health could unlock prosperity in his isolated hometown on the far reaches of semiarid Kitui County in lower eastern Kenya.
Unfortunately, Nzasi’s dream of better days ahead almost became a mirage due to droughts that have worsened poverty, hunger and poor school enrollment in his ancestral rural community.
But the elementary school principal is now looking at a more optimistic future thanks to China’s Stecol Corp, affiliated with PowerChina, which has donated water storage tanks to help quench the thirst of young learners.
Staff from Stecol Corp, which is also upgrading a 330-kilometer road that snakes through the Kitui County heartland, recently donated a huge plastic tank to Nzisa’s Kitoo primary school to collect rain water.
Before the donation, pupils were required to trek many kilometers in search of water, but being able to obtain the precious commodity in distant wells and streams was no certainty.
Now the 480 students are happy and enthusiastic about their studies because their school has adequate water.
“The donation marked a new milestone in the history of this school that has always grappled with water scarcity — much to the detriment of academic aspirations of our pupils,” Nzisa said.
“We are grateful to the Chinese company for lending a helping hand at a time an acute drought threatened learning in the larger Kitui County.”
The school will benefit from the opening of Kitui’s vast hinterland through the construction of the highway that will link the Kenyan coast to the northern border with Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Construction of the critical road network started last August and is expected to be completed by February 2021.
Defining feature
Chinese companies are involved in the development of the modern infrastructure project as part of the Belt and Road Initiative to deepen cooperation with Kenya and other regional partners.
Qiao Dakuan, a manager with Stecol Corp, said that service to communities has become a “defining feature” of Chinese companies that are actively engaged in the development of mega infrastructure projects in Kenya.
Qiao related stories of coming across young students in Kitui who were using plastic buckets near road construction sites to scoop water out of ditches — at the expense of their studies.
“My heart broke one cool evening in February when I spotted students from a nearby primary school scouring the bare ground on the road side to look for water,” Qiao said.
According to data from the Chinese embassy, total bilateral trade hit approximately $3.8 billion in 2017 while 400 Chinese companies have so far been established in Kenya and employ around 120,000 locals.