Airtel Malawi hands over MK10 Million Solar Power Water Pump to Chiradzulu District Hospital

Airtel Malawi on Tuesday, 5 July handed over to Chiradzulu District Hospital Management, Council Officials and Chiefs a MK10 million solar power water pump to cushion with the shortage of water supply at the Hospital.

According to Airtel Head 0f Brand Communications, Public Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility, Nora Chavula Chirwa, the idea of the water pump came in response to the COVID-19 Private Citizens Response Initiative 2020 plea to help public hospitals as they were overwhelmed with COVID-19.

Chirwa said Airtel staff took it upon themselves to contribute part of their monthly salaries in order to help this noble initiative run by the COVID-19 Private Citizens Response initiative.

“As Airtel staff we felt we needed to do something as you can recall COVID-19 hit us hard in early 2020. So as staff members we contributed part of our monthly salaries where we managed to raise MK5 million. Airtel Management after seeing that we have raised that amount on our own, they topped the money with another MK5 million making the money to reach MK10 million.

“After collecting the money we reached out Onjezani Kenani who initiated the COVID-19 Private Citizens Response initiative to guide us on to where we can send the money to and that is when we learnt about Chiradzulu District Hospital and water problems the hospital faces,” she explained

Principal Secretary, responsible for Administration in the Ministry of Health, Beston Chisamile said the gesture by Airtel is very commendable considering that water has been a great challenge at the hospital despite having other water sources at the premises.

Chisamile said that Chiradzulu District Hospital will now have 4 water sources that will be supplying to the hospital, the first source is the Blantyre Water Board, a Borehole that was donated by Medicines San Frontiers and stream that runs through Chiradzulu Mountains.

He added that the donation has come in good time when COVID-19 have started to rise again and therefore there is need to have adequate water at the hospitals as people need to wash hands frequently.

Chairperson for Sons and Daughters of Chiradzulu, Phocas Sikaloka expressed gratitude to Airtel Malawi and COVID-19 Private Citizens Response team for assisting the hospital with a solar power water pump.

According to Sikaloka, after observing how big the water problem was at the hospital and how the cases of COVID-19 were rising, they reached out to COVID-19 Private Citizens and Response team who then got in touch with Airtel and the rest was history.

Sikaloka urged the Chiefs and members of staff to safeguard the solar water pump as the first pump that was installed got stolen and it costed COVID-19 Private Citizens Response to release MK2 million to buy a replacement.