OUR SUPPLY CHAIN MATTERS

As we transition our fleet to electric, we thought it appropriate to consider the effect this change may have on faraway shores. Additionally, we want to ensure that by solving a problem in our local communities, in terms of carbon emissions, we do not foster a problem in under-developed countries, such a DRC, where cobalt is mined for our EV batteries – the commodity we so need to make this transition happen. In order to acknowledge our supply chain and raise awareness, we have decided to team up with The Good Shepherd International Foundation.

WHO ARE THE GOOD SHEPHERD INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION (GSIF)?

Since 2013, The Good Shepherd International Foundation has been working to prevent human rights violations and eradicate child labour in the cobalt artisanal mining communities, living at the upstream of the battery supply chain in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Through a holistic and unique model of intervention which integrates education, alternative livelihoods, and social protection The Good Shepherd International Foundation, was able to achieve effective results in improving the lives of these mining communities, negatively affected by mining operations. The GSIF community development program in Kolwezi, Lualaba Province, has helped more than 4,800 children to quit the mines and go to school, providing vocational training for hundreds of girls, and supporting innovative agribusiness initiatives engaging women and their families to access alternative livelihoods to mining.

BACK TO BASICS

Some of the artisanal mining communities where the GSIF work are very isolated. They have difficulties in accessing basic health services, due to the great distance from the few existing health facilities in the area, which often offer poor quality medical care, unaffordable for most families who live in extremely empoverished conditions.

HOW ARE WE HELPING?

To ensure that every family has access to essential care, we have partnered with GISF to develop a new mobile clinic project to provide free primary-care and pediatric, obstetrics and gynaecology health services for the most vulnerable children and women living in the communities of Kanina, Kisote, Mukoma and Tshala, in the Kolwezi area. We will put a small levy on each deliver in order to be able to fund this project.

The mobile clinic will be set up on a 4×4 truck in order to be able to reach these under-served and remote villages, even when the roads are less accessible during rainy seasons. The health staff will visit each community every two weeks, monitoring health conditions of hundreds of women, children, mothers and their newborns, offering follow-up care, specialist visits and the referral of the most serious and complicated cases to local hospitals.The mobile clinic will also help disseminate good practices relating to health, hygiene and Covid-19 prevention and support childhood vaccination campaigns.

The mobile clinic eventually arrived in DRC in March 2022. It was a long and challenging journey. The mobile clinic crossed the sea to reach Dar es Salam in Tanzania and then travelled 1,200 miles to finally reach Kolwezi in the Southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. In DRC, the health of many families is unfortunately affected by exposure to dangerous levels of toxic pollution and enviornmental contamination caused by cobalt mining operations. Additionally, accessing basic health services is not at all easy: local health facilities are few and often very distant from the villages, offering poor medical care at an unaffordable cost for most of the population living in poverty.

Since the inauguration of the mobile clinic in March 2022, doctors and nurses have already begun to make the first check-ups and they will soon start to visit the communities, monitoring the health of hundreds of women, children, mothers and newborns.

Have a look below at some picture of the mobile clinic on its opening day.

AWARENESS AND ACTION

Here at ARCT Transport Ltd, we cannot change the world, but we can do our bit and acknowledge our supply chain, in the process raising awareness amidst our employees and partners.

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WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Learn more about the GSIF program and the mobile clinic project here:

www.congo.gsif.it

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