Coca-Cola Africa Foundation to construct water treatment centres

Accra, Feb. 12, GNA - The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, is to constru= ct five water treatment centres in the Greater Accra and Volta Regions. This is aimed at providing the local communities with safe and clean drinking water, to ensure good health. Mr William Asiko, President of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, said this in Accra, on Saturday, during an interview with media men, as part of the Foundation's 10th anniversary celebrations.

The Foundation, which was established in 2001, is to help create sustainable communities in Africa, by investing over 100 million US dollars= , since the past 10 years in four key areas, including access to clean water, health, education and entrepreneurship with humanitarian assistance, during natural disasters. He said the Foundation had also constructed two local water and distribution centres in Pakro and Adieso, both in the Eastern Region, which would provide access to clean water for over 3,500 people from the community. "Projects have been completed in the Jomoro District in the Western Region and Ahensan in Kumasi. The projects provided boreholes, latrines and replanting of tress for local communities."

On education, Mr Asiko said the Foundation, with its partners, the Discovery Channel Education Group, had spent 600,000 US dollars to provide teaching aids and education curriculum content to 20 schools in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions.

"Over the last few years, the Foundation's aim has been to build a= t least one basic school across the country. To date, six schools have been refurbished with one currently under construction," he said. Mr Michael Goltzman, Director of Public Affairs and Communications of Coca-Cola, North and West Africa, said the foundation had initiated a project called 93Net4Life", where the focus was on preventive health, by funding and distributing over 1.3 million treated mosquito nets to help prevent Malaria in the country. He said there was also a workplace HIV/AIDS Programme for employees an= d their entire families, where counselling, testing and treatment would be given to anyone that was infected. In the area of entrepreneurial skills development, Mr Goltzman noted that, the Foundation had trained 150 National Service personnel in sales an= d marketing within the Coca-Cola organisation.

"At the end of the training, some of the trained personnel are hired= by the company, while other trainees use their newly acquired skills to gain employment with other organisations in the country," he said. He said for the next five years, two million Africans in local communities would benefit from a project dubbed Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN), with an initial investment of 30 million US dollars, to provide access to clean drinking water. Mr Goltzman announced said since the start of the company's operatio= ns in the country, over 120 million dollars had been invested in various sectors of the economy, adding that, every year, the company invested about 10-15 million US dollars. 1