Social Responsibility

In fact, in HCB, intervention in the social area means a change of attitudes, from a perspective of business management focused on the quality of relations with the various social stakeholders. In this context, HCB’s social responsibility initiatives are guided along the following lines:

• To attend to the communities living in the vicinity of the dam in the following order of priority: Cahora Bassa district, Tete province and the Zambezi Valley region.
• To attend to socio-cultural initiatives that have a national impact and humanitarian campaigns (epidemics, floods, droughts and cyclones).

HCB’s orientation along the lines mentioned above seeks to achieve the following objectives:

1. To improve the relationship between the company and the community;
2. To contribute to improved quality of life for its employees, their respective families, the local community, and society as a whole.

In the permanent commitment to improving the quality of life of the community living in Cahora Bassa district, HCB has been taking responsibility for setting up and maintaining infrastructure, such as the road network, extension to the electricity grid, and supplies of clean drinking water.

In the town of Songo, apart from the presence of the HCB Medical Post, visited by hundreds of patients every day, suffering from various illnesses, the company has invested resources to improve the facilities at the Songo Rural Hospital, where two doctors hired by the company are working.

In following a policy of social responsibility, which rests on developing individual and collective initiatives and practices that promote changes of attitudes in the community, HCB has provided resources (vehicles, industrial equipment and the availability of technical and human support) for undertaking small scale agriculture, livestock and fishing projects.

HCB has also set up a technical and professional school in Songo, and the Songo Higher Polytechnic Institute is being established, with the collaboration of the company.

The company’s involvement in setting up technical and professional training institutions is aimed at the development of skills which will help develop a spirit of enterprise and promote agents to fight against poverty and social exclusion.

Also from the perspective of education and the development of self-esteem, HCB has embraced several sporting and cultural initiatives. By way of example, we could mention the support for FUT- 21, an initiative which seeks to prepare future talent for national football, and sponsorship for Moçambola, for the Chingale football team of Tete and obviously for the HCB Sports Group.

In 2007 HCB invested 26,003,249.19 Meticais, equivalent to about 1.1 million US dollars.

In short, for HCB, social responsibility is an ethical and responsible way of living in society.