A plumbing company with offices across the county has enabled a water pump to be installed in an African country. 

After partnering with AquAid, a water cooler supplier, Grant and Stone has enabled a water pump to be built in Manicaland, Zimbabwe, which will provide clean, fresh drinking water for hundreds of people in the province.

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Grant and Stone, which has branches in Bicester, Abingdon, Didcot, Oxford, Thame, Wantage and Witney, installed watercoolers into its 44 locations and with each purchase automatically donated to The Africa Trust, which works to bring solutions to poverty in Africa.

The pump is a modified version of a Chinese rope pulley system designed to lift water and is constructed and maintained using materials available in rural sub-Saharan African communities.

It is capable of producing up to 10,000 litres of clean water every day.

James Tonks, branch manager at Grant and Stone in Bicester, said: “By simply installing AquAid watercoolers into all our branches, the company has been able to make such a difference to hundreds of people’s lives, and it’s fantastic to see the Grant and Stone water pump up and running.”

To date, AquAid has built over 8,000 elephant pumps across parts of Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and has donated in excess of £19 million to charity.

 

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This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1