Ocean Network Express Donates to Charity Justdiggit on World Water Day

To celebrate World Water Day on 22nd of March, Ocean Network Express (ONE) has donated €10,000 to the charity, Justdiggit.

Water is very much a part of ONE’s day to day operations and as this year’s theme is “groundwater”, ONE decided to donate to Justdiggit, a charity which specializes in digging up dry ground and capturing rainwater to regreen dried-up lands in Africa. The charity has several projects running in Kenya and Tanzania, which have already restored 60,000 hectares of land and brought back over 9 million trees.

Justdiggit is focused on creating awareness and educating and activating local farmers to regreen their own land in Tanzania. In Kenya they work with Maasai communities who aim to restore large areas of communal land. The organization focuses on long-term, self-sustaining solutions, a valuable criterion for ONE.

The donation will result in the digging of 1,250 water bunds, semi-circular shaped holes that effectively capture rainwater. These water bunds will collectively capture over 2.6 million litres of water every time it rains, resulting in the regreening of approximately 155,000 metres of land.

According to Justdiggit’s Managing Director, Marjolein Alberes, “Water is perhaps the most important component of any ecosystem. All living organisms need water to grow and survive. It therefore plays a crucial role in our regreening projects, particularly in our bund-programs through which we harvest rainwater. Bunds, or as we like to call them: “earth smiles”, are semi-circular pits that are dug in our project areas in Africa in order to capture rainwater that will otherwise get washed away over dry, barren soil. We are very happy to receive this wonderful donation from Ocean Network Express which will allow us to dig even more bunds and capture millions of litres of water, positively impacting biodiversity, nature, people, and our climate.” 

ONE’s Managing Director for Europe and Africa, Shunichiro Mizukami, said “We are pleased to support Justdiggit’s valuable work of regreening land in Africa. ONE is an environmentally conscious company and we are always looking for ways to reduce our impact on the environment and to support the work of charities that contribute to allowing the natural world to thrive. We hope this donation will help make a big difference to the local people of Kuku in Kenya.”

The donation to Justdiggit is part of ONE’s ongoing efforts to create a more sustainable world, which is at the heart of the company’s business operations and culture.

To find out more about ONE’s sustainability activities please visit our website.