By Sheng Xia, Manager of Humana People to People

Luo Qinglin is the project manager of Atlas Copco’s community development project in Butuo, Liangshan. I don’t know her privately except normal contact for job. From the cooperation, I felt that she is a classic hot-tempered Yi people.

In March or April this year, I heard that she was pregnant. I was a little worried about her besides expressing my congratulations to her. She was in charge of 2016 Atlas Copco project, and thus she has execution and operation experience of the project, especially the construction of impounding water tanks. The project needed an experienced person to carry out supervision on site from time to time to guarantee project quality. Would her health be influenced by frequent site visiting? How to guarantee project quality if she wouldn’t visit site frequently? I talked to her and she replied that it was ok for her because she knew quite well about her own health. She could insist until the moment she couldn’t insist.

                                                  Luoqinglin (first from the left) is visiting villagers

The impounding water tanks was started to built on August 7th, and completed and passed acceptance inspection on October 31st. Luo Qinglin went to Butuo to conduct supervision totally 17 times. During the supervision she carried out once, She found the impounding water tanks’s cement mark of concrete poured by the construction team was non-compliant and walls of the water tanks were easily damaged. So she communicate with the leader of the construction team and reported to the Women’s Federation, the project partner. Then she ordered the construction company to replace the construction team, re-pouring cement for the impounding water tanks and construct protection bank, etc. All her jobs contributed to today’s impounding water tanks that could be taken as model impounding water tanks in Butuo.

Staff from Butuo Women’s Federation are supervising construction status of the impounding water tanks.

To us, 17 is just a number. However, to Luo Qinglin, it means one challenge after another. I saw her once when I went to Butuo in October. Her belly was getting bigger and bigger day by day because she was pregnant with twins, and it was even hard for her to walk around. I talked to her again. “My belly was bigger because I was pregnant with twins. But I can insist for some days until the construction of the impounding water tanks was completed. There will be only training left after its completion. Therefore, it will be easier job left. There will be troubles if we change project manager now. It will take several days for new PM to get used to the project,” said her.

Filter tank and disinfection tank

One key point of Humana People to People project is cultivating people who comes from Butuo to stay there. Luo Qinglin, the basic-level staff, is willing to provided service for Butuo people, which is also good for project execution and track. The development power growing inside communities will also be cultivated gradually.

The village covered by the impounding water tanks.

Project Introduction:

Butuo County is under the administration of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan. The distribution of water in this area is extremely uneven. According information provided by Butuo Water Supplies Bureau, the drinking water pipe network is out of repair for several years. It is seriously aged and damaged, and has serious water leakage. The water source is exhausted. All these issues and migration relocation result in the increasing contradiction between supply and demand of villagers’ drinking water. Butuo encountered severe drought in recent years, and thus water source of drinking water project is failed to be guaranteed. Lower water source guaranteed rate results in water demand can’t be satisfied. Increasing severe water use issue threatens Butuo people’s life and results in the occurrence of water born disease, which is more serious for children. Atlas Copco “Water For All” Chinese Project cooperates with Humana People to People to solve local villagers’ problem of water drinking.

The project is funded by Atlas Copco (China) Investment Co., Ltd. and executed by Humana People to People and Butuo Women's Federation.

This article only represents the author's viewpoint but not the donor's viewpoint or position.