Your best friend can also be your best critic. My wife Mary's first reaction on the title of my blog was one of surprise; she siad: ".. digging for gold?.... that does not sound much like a development project...". So why did I choose that name? It was the first thing that came to my mind when Cassie asked me what title I had in mind for my blog when she set it up for me a few days ago. The EFE project in Colombia will most likely focus on two trades areas: gold mining training for artesanal miners and training for small scale farmers. I will be able to give more details in February and March when I will have visted the two isolated communities of Santa Rosa del Sur and Barranco de Loba again. There is a significant increase on gold mining in Colombia, and a fair amount of this increase is caused by informal small scale mining, or also called artesanal mining. These miners are in most cases under-educated and in need of training on safety and sustainable practices, for example finding alternatives for the use of mercury which has direct negative impact on their own health but which has also a devastating negative impact on the natural environment, including the drinking water of their own communities.
So "digging for gold" plays on the fact that an important part of my work in Colombia will be to reach out to people who dig for gold for a living. I hope it makes more sense now?
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