Coke ‘walks for love’ on clean water for rural kids
Print Edition
WALK for Love, a charity campaign by Coca-Cola China and One Foundation to improve water quality in impoverished areas in China, kicked off its 2014 episode on Statuary in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.
The project, under Coke’s new bottled water brand Ice Dew Chun Yue, gathered 4,000 hikers from 1,000 teams all over the country, who completed their nocturnal hiking on a 49.8-kilometer-long mountain trail. Each team was required to raise at least 1,000 yuan (US$159) before their hiking attempts. The participating teams have all together collected 1.64 million yuan in donation for the Shenzhen event.
The money, along with the Coca-Cola China charity fund, will finance the Clean Water Project, a program co-founded by Coco-Cola China and One Foundation. The program will help install water purification equipment for rural schools in China.
The Clean Water Project, among strategic cooperation between Coco-Cola China and One Foundation, is aimed at helping children in rural areas access clean direct drinking water anytime.
In 2012, the Clean Water Project launched pilot programs to install water purification equipment for rural schools in Chongqing municipality, Hunan and Guangdong provinces. In 2013, the Walk for Love raised 1.31 million yuan in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, for the Clean Water Project and benefited over 10,000 children. This year, the number of registered hikers nearly tripled from 2013.
Although most hikers didn’t receive any professional training in sports, the campaign did help them fulfill their dream of promoting clean water. Among them, Cheng Ying, a girl born in 1990s, was a full-time charity activist. She spent 32 hours on a train and traveled 1,400 kilometers to Hetian in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for research on clean water. For her, the Walk for Love experience was special.
“I saw what they drank and how they drank. I also saw the purification equipment installed by One Foundation at Lazi shu Village. My tiny efforts will make the equipment accessible by more kids in Hetian,” said Cheng. “I’m so motivated by that. I believe a society will be good if every citizen is devoted to charity work.”
It is reported that 50 million children in 114,000 rural schools in China still can’t access safe drinking water. In 2014, Coco-Cola China, working with One Foundation, planned to host the Walk for Love project in a number of cities, including Shenzhen, Changsha, Hunan Province and Xiamen, Fujian Province. This year, the Clean Water Project is expected to install equipment for more than 100 schools and help 40,000 children in rural areas access clean drinking water.
“We pursue quality in drinking water and are concerned about safe drinking. That drives us to work with civil institutions, governments, partners and consumers in a constant manner,” said Zhang Huaying, vice president of sustainability, Coca-Cola China. “I believe our campaign will make this goal become the dream for millions of people.”
After two years’ strategic partnership with One Foundation, Coco-Cola China released social welfare-based bottled mineral water Ice Dew Chun Yue this year. The product pursued high quality and happy charity work. It promoted the value of “I can drink clean water and I will help others do it” to the general public.
The charity QR code was put on the product packing so that consumers could participate in charity and share their happiness. Coco-Cola China and One Foundation plan to bring more influential partners into bigger stage via their Ice Dew Chun Yue product. In 2014, RT-Mart, Sinopec, Beijing Hualian Group and Coco-Cola’s other long-term partners were all passing the value of “high quality and happy charity” to their consumers all over China.
“We hope we can join hands with our suppliers, customers and consumers to help our children. It’s about passing on care and happiness, which reflects the corporate culture of Coca-Cola,” said Zhang. “When we see the smiling faces of the children as they drink the purified water, we know that’s the biggest achievement for all of us.”
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