"We take turns on duty every day and hope it will always be as clean and beautiful as it was when it was built," said Hadiseh, a 13-year-old Pakistani school girl.

Sinomach subsidiary China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) has built a friendship middle school in Dhani village, Muzaffarabad district, Pakistan. A few years ago, the previous rural school was destroyed by an earthquake, and children had to study in a few dilapidated rooms.

"We want to give parents the confidence to send their children to school without fear for their safety," said Zhou Guanwu, chief engineer of the Pakistan Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project undertaken by CMEC.

CMEC builders, school leaders and students pose for a group photo during the handover celebration of the friendship middle school. [Photo/CMEC]

The new school, which was open to students in April 2018, has the highest anti-seismic grade. Students all loved the new school very much and have decorated the campus, turning it into a beautiful garden.

The new school has greatly improved the quality of faculty and teaching, said Azra, principal of the well-run friendship middle school. "Thanks to Chinese enterprises for bringing hope to the children," he added.

School is the starting point for children to enter the larger world. The school principal noted that when people move out of their ancestral villages and work in big cities, they become more aware of the importance of acquiring knowledge and skills.

Azra said that even in a mountain village like Dhani parents have put more and more emphasis on child's education, and children have also become more active in learning and more desirous of a better future.

CMEC employees and school teachers and students pose for a group photo before the new school buildings. [Photo/CMEC]

During the implementation of infrastructure projects in Pakistan, Chinese enterprises created a large number of job opportunities for local people, and provided them with skills training to help them be better involved in work, according to Chief Engineer Zhou Guanwu.

The friendship school has improved the local education level and cultivated talents for Pakistan's industrialization, and will continue to further the lasting friendship between China and Pakistan.

At present, the school has 175 students and nine teachers, and the 12 school rooms can accommodate a maximum of about 400 students. An enlargement plan is in the making to allow more rural students to access primary education.

"The school not only aims to impart knowledge but also to expand children's horizons, so as to help them realize their dreams," Azra said.

The CMEC Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Plant is the company's major infrastructure project in the Pakistan market. It is one part of a river-to-river hydroelectric power scheme designed to divert water from the Neelum River to a power station on the Jhelum River. The plant is one of the major projects planned by the Pakistani government to enhance its hydropower development to meet the growing energy needs of the country.

The project was the first in the world to successfully introduce a mixed-flow turbine generator set with high water head, an achievement that has boosted the export of Chinese-made water turbine generators to Pakistan and broken the monopoly of Western manufacturing in the local hydropower industry.

(Source: People's Daily/Translated and edited by Sinomach)