Chinese companies fulfill CSR along African railway

The Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, also known as Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, links capital of Ethiopia and Djibouti, opened service on October 5, 2016 to become the latest testament to the Sino-African friendship.
 
The 752.7-km line was constructed by China Railway Group (CREC) and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) with an investment of $4 billion. In the process of construction, Chinese enterprises were devoted to benefiting local society and actively fulfilled the social responsibility which has boosted the Sino-African friendship with action.
 
Building the railway and bringing wealth
 
Before the building of Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, local villagers along the route went out only by walking as many villages previously had no road access. When women gave birth to children, they could only rely on a few people taking turns to carry them and walk more than ten kilometers to the hospital. After knowing the situation, CREC built the permanent railway for villagers and it will bring wealth for them.
 
Now, villagers can transport food and vegetables they produce to Addis Ababa for sale and become rich gradually. The poor house has been changed from cottage to tile- roofed house or house made of iron sheets, the ill and pregnant women can be sent to hospital by bus and the bride can be sent directly to the village by car.
 
Countless roads have been built for villages along the railway. Particularly, CREC has built 25km permanent service roads within the range of 46km railway.
 
Teaching well drilling skill
 
Ethiopia is a water-poor country. Ethiopia belongs to tropical savanna climate and more than half year is in drought. Although Ethiopia is named of The Water Tower of East Africa, abundant water resource is under the ground with lower utilization. When the drought season comes, villagers suffer water shortage. CREC workers took the water demand of villagers into account in the construction and helped them to dig wells to solve the drinking issue and taught them drilling skill.
 
Participating in social welfare
 
The Mieso-Davanli section of Ethio-Djibouti railway is in Somali community where they have unique life style and language. When the CCECC carried out inspection here in January, 2012, they saw many sheepherding Somalis shouldered AK-47 assault rifle. Li Wuliang, a manager of CCECC, visited the local leader with other managers. Recommended by the leader, the project management team visited the major emirates, the elders and the villagers of main villages along the route. The team introduced the significance to build the railway for Ethiopia, donated clothes, school supplies, sports goods, medicines and other supplies, and funded church building.
 
What Chinese enterprises did also received sincere return. “Every time we arrived at a village, they treated us with the best food and local dances.” said Li Wuliang.
 
There was a desert region with low trees, about 23 kilometers from one China Railway Construction Corporation camp in Ethiopia. When Chinese workers started the construction, they found two tree doors made by trunk and there were two sheep heads and blood sheepskin above them. The local engineer told the Chinese workers to retreat because it was the warning sign from local villagers, otherwise they will be in danger.
 
In the following two days, they attended the village assembly and carefully listened opinions from local villagers. It turned out that the villagers worried the construction of the railway would destroy their houses and they would lose everything. Chinese workers explained that they had considered the villages along the route and would never remove one house. As soon as the construction starts, they would hire local villagers to build the railway together. Villagers were pleased and changed their attitude to support the construction after communication.