Yusen Logistics operations manager Louise Gunby has begun a three-month secondment to Transaid’s Professional Driver Training project in Zambia.

She is on secondment to the Industrial Training Centre (ITC) in Zambia, supporting the centre in its aim to reduce the traffic fatalities in sub-Saharan Africa through professional HGV, PSV and forklift truck training.

While on secondment, Gunby will be responsible for helping the ITC team standardise training materials, identify areas of improvement in the teaching, scheduling and planning of training activities and processing the project’s data.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge and I hope to make a real difference to the project while I am in Zambia. Sharing the skills and knowledge I’ve built up over my career in logistics with others will be hugely rewarding,” she said.

In addition to the day-to-day tasks, Gunby will have to contend with Zambia’s power outages – sometimes as little as five to six hours of electricity per day – and none of the automated processes that are standard in the UK.

“It’s going to be interesting seeing how they overcome the lack of power but I’m excited to be going back to basics with paper-based and manual systems like we had in the UK at the beginning of my career 27 years ago,” added Gunby.

This is the first time Yusen Logistics has seconded one of its employees to Transaid’s projects since becoming a corporate member in 2014.

More recently, the company has participated in the Christmas appeal through designing its own festive card, raised funds during its senior management conference and held a customer golf day in aid of the charity.