Varun Beverages on Thursday donated 30 Pepsi push carts to female miners across the country through the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF).
Varun Beverages’ Pepsico franchise in Zimbabwe produces a range of products that include Pepsi, Mirinda, Mountain Dew, 7Up and Aquaclear.
The company is targeting donating 2 000 push carts to various vendors in the country’s rural and mining towns.
Speaking at the launch of the programme in Harare on Thursday, the guest of honour, Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando said:
We are here today to witness an empowerment initiative for the women in mines, what is important is that ZMF is not only folding hands but they are digging, taking a loop at what is happening and see how they can make things better for the women in the mining industry, so this occasion is quite momentous for the women in mines.
I want to thank Varun Beverages for this wonderful initiative and I hope that this relationship that has been created can last a lifetime.
ZMF president, Henrietta Rushwaya, said the relationship with Varun Beverages was just the beginning of future women projects that will be pursued.
Varun Beverages chief executive, Vijay Bahl, said the initiative will go a long way in reducing joblessness in rural areas. He said:
With the extension of the project, expansion and investments that we have done, we saw that it was very important for us to come up with a model which we said can reach rural Zimbabwe.
Some of the vendors try to sell their drinks and food products from a street corner so we thought that it was better to give them beautiful, good-looking push carts and we got these pushcarts, which we started to roll out in Harare and key cities in Zimbabwe since.
We saw that we can help fight poverty, and unemployment in rural areas, therefore we thought that we needed to go to miners and those in rural areas.