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Shipex sponsors construction of school in Cameroon

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Shipex sponsors construction of school in Cameroon

On May 17, 2019, a school was opened in Batié, Cameroon. The school offers several possibilities for the youth of Batié, for whom a promising future seems secured. In order to realize this project, freight forwarder Shipex has called upon the Fondation Fongang, with whom it maintains close ties.

CEO of Shipex, Bram de Schepper, is proud: "For years we have maintained a very good relationship with one of our customers of the first hour. Our customers are mainly located in Douala and Yaoundé, but their roots are in Batié, in the north. By sponsoring this project, we felt that we could do something in return for all our Cameroonian customers at the same time."

About the Fondation: "I am convinced that a lot of other organizations do a good job as well, but I like to see exactly where my donation is going. In this case, we had a choice: we could have sponsored, for example, teaching materials or training courses. However, we decided to go for something tangible. Thanks to the Fondation, we were able to facilitate the construction of an administrative school building." The bricks, in other words. "The facade of the school now displays the name of Shipex. Nice to see."

The motivation for the donation is of course two-fold. "On the one hand there is a marketing idea behind it, I'm not going to deny that. The publicity is good for customer relations. Nevertheless, we also really wanted to contribute something to that region, which is so important to our customers. It's their home. I went to the opening of the school with my colleague, and that was very special. A lot of our customers showed up at the opening itself, it was wonderful to see everyone together. The Belgian ambassador in Cameroon was also present. The opening was quite the party - in Cameroon they sure know how to celebrate."

The Fongang Fondation took care of the daily monitoring of the construction. "We have deliberately chosen to only make the donation and not to follow it up in any other way. There is simply no time for that. In the future, there may be another project or opportunity like this, but it's not something we're planning on doing every year from now on. Although I do expect that this project has put Shipex on the map and that people with these kinds of projects will find their way to us a little easier." (smiles)