Zoomlion Ghana Limited, through its Zoomkids CSR Programme, has trained over 500,000 schoolchildren on green skills and sanitation.
The Zoomkids CSR Programme is aimed at raising the level of awareness on environmental sanitation issues among children and youths in Ghanaian schools.
The main focus of Zoomkids’ initiative is to ‘Catch Them Young’ in schools, and it has so far reached over 526 schools nationwide – which have signed onto the various interventions including Zoomkids Recycling, Climate Change Innovations; Zoomkids Excursions; Operation Clean Your Frontage; and Zoomkids Upcycling and Quiz Competitions. This year alone, over 150 additional schools joined the new Zoomkids Pipe-It-Up Ghana Project.
Speaking at the 2nd edition of the Children Sanitation Fair and 4th edition of the Schools Sanitation Solutions Challenge, Zoomlion Director of Finance and Group Financial Controller of Environmental and Sanitation Cluster of the Jospong Group, Mrs. Adokarley Opkoti-Paulo – who represented the Managing Director of Zoomlion, said the Zoomkids peer education in schools has impacted lives. The Zoomlion Foundation is taking steps to initiate green skills training for out-of-school youth.
The 2nd edition of Children Sanitation Fair and 4th edition of Schools Sanitation Solutions Challenge were jointly organised by Zoomlion Foundation, World Vision and Kings Hall Media plus other partners. The two events happened concurrently at the National Theatre, where Zoomlion Foundation hosted the Children Sanitation Fair for one thousand, five hundred (1,500) schoolchildren and teachers, and World Vision hosted the Schools Sanitation Solutions Challenge.
Mrs. Paulo said Zoomlion has initiated a number of public education programmes, key among them being the Zoomkids CSR Programme.
She said the main pillars of Zoomkids CSR Programme serve as an umbrella for many sub-projects – adding that, in 2008 and 2009, the company collaborated with Ghana Education Service to start Zoomkids Clubs in primary and JHS schools to champion peer education on sanitation. Zoom Ambassadors Clubs were later formed in the SHS schools to offer green skills to the youth.
She added that the success of this became evident when schools took up initiatives to clean up their immediate surroundings. The Acting MD revealed that in 2010 Zoomlion backed these clean-ups with nationwide donations of sanitation logistics to schools; and among the items donated were wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes, cutlasses, rain-boots and brooms. “This metamorphosed into operation ‘Clean Your Frontage’ in schools.”
She indicated that from 2014 the company initiated Zoomkids School Recycling Project; which gave out waste-bins, recycling machines and recycling training to schoolchildren. “We have constructed a recycling shed in the Western Region and installed recycling machines in the Eastern Region and Accra.”
This climaxed into a partnership with the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD) to organise the first Recycling Innovation Challenge, which was won by Anyaboni Basic School at Asesewa in the Upper Manya Krobo municipality.
Mrs. Paulo said in 2016 Zoomlion Foundation implemented the nationwide Zoomkids Sanitation Quiz Competition, in which the winner was sponsored with an all-expenses-paid trip to Dubai; and in 2023 Zoomlion sponsored the Child Sanitation Diplomat to Budapest.
Mrs. Paulo said the most recent activity was in 2022, when Zoomlion Foundation launched the ‘Pipe-It-Up’ Ghana Project in collaboration with Pureco and the Embassy of Hungary. “This project uses an interactive board-game to raise awareness on the conservation of water resources for Sustainable Development.”
