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ZWRDT empowers women, fights illegal mining
Thabani
Dube, The Zimbabwean
October 22, 2013
http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/68967/zwrdt-empowers-women-fights-illegal.html
The Zimbabwe
Women Rural Development Trust has trained and registered 35 miners,
mainly women, while more gold-panners are targeted in a bid to eradicate
illegal mining in the country.
ZWRDT Director
Sarudzai Washaya told The Zimbabwean that after realising that the
marginalised rural women folk thought mining was a man’s job
she decided to tackle the issue head-on.
“Training
and empowering women to become legal miners is meant to end illegal
mining that has contributed to a lot of negative things, such as
land degradation, crime and death. It is also meant to promote women’s
participation in the sector,” she said.
“After
training them we form cooperatives with constitution and leadership
and provide them with entrepreneurial skills so that when they realise
profits they invest it.”
The trust works
with various experts in from AREX, the Environment Management Agency,
the Zimbabwe Republic Police, mining experts and government ministries.
Washaya said prospective miners get mining land by getting approval
letters from their local Chiefs, District Administrators.
“After
securing mining land we assist them to engage the Ministry of mines
and Mining Commission to get a Prospecting License and Certificate
of Registration, which cost roughly $500,” she said.
Besides mining
the organisation also promotes commercial agricultural and tourism
activities in their communities since its establishment in 2007
before introducing mining last year.
ZWRDT was founded
in 2007 in Mashonaland East Province and later spread to Matabeleland
South and Midlands. It is run by a board of five trustees - three
women and two men. It has three categories: agriculture with over
700 members, tourism - composed of 50 groups of 10 members each
and 35 miners.
“Interested
people pay a once off $20 joining fee and are trained and given
capital in the form of mining equipment like compressors, water
pumps and millers to start their own projects as cooperatives,”
she said.
Mining activities
are mainly concentrated in Gwanda and Gokwe where they extract gold,
copper, coal, quarts, iron and agate - used to make jewelleries.
In Gokwe, Tashinga
Women Gold Mine was registered as a cooperative in Masoro Village
and two more cooperatives, in Gwanda and Empress, are in the process
of registering.
“Mining
requires machinery and our challenge with rural people is that they
live far apart. It is difficult to have a central point to encourage
team work. At the end of the day members of the cooperative rotationally
use the machines. But transporting the equipment is another problem,”
added Washaya.
The lack of
motor vehicle to reach remote areas for training was hindering progress.
“We use public transport when we go to train and engage our
members of the group. Lack of bank loans and investors is also affecting
our business. We were hoping to partner with Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
to keep the gold that we mine so as to have it as collateral to
enable members to borrow money from banks,” she said.
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