Clean and responsible mining is possible

After the days in Segovia and Remedios we visited an area around Puerto Berrio, further south in the province of Antioquia, also on the border with the province of Bolivar. In one of the locations we did have the opportunity to visit an operation called "Gramalote" (owned by Anglo Gold Ashanti from South Africa with also some Canadian investors). The community is called San Roque and was in the past an area of only very small scale artisanal miners. Ashanti started the Gramalote operation 4 years ago and it is the only "open air" gold mining operation so far in the country. They are taking layer by layer from some of the small mountains, much like I have seen in South Africa around Johannesburg.

The work is done 100 % formal and 110 % safe. The traditional artisanal miners were offered to take up work with Gramalote and if they accepted were completely retrained. Those who preferred not to join the larger company, were still offered training and also education for their family members. The Gramalote operation buys the land "titulos" from the smaller miners only according to fully legal processes. The CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) operation of Gramalote is impressive.

An impression of the local landscape and of one of the open air sites. The area is indicated on the map below and also a detail of the size of the operation:

 

This is the new training facility of Gramalote. They hired a team of teachers with teacher education and who are all from the local communities. They offer both supplemental basic education (math and language as well as computer courses) and skills training programs for youth and adults. Here are a few photos of this proud teachers team (the ones in the white shirts). The male teacher of this team did not have work as a teacher because of local politics and he applied as a miner at Gramalote. The HR staff noticed his teacher's qualifications and offered him a job as one of the teachers; a nice story and good to have a bit of gender balance....

The teachers in this photo are joined by one of the SENA graduates working at the site. SENA is already doing some cooperation with Gramalote, and I think that our Canadian funded EFE project will stimulate increased cooperation. The SENA staff met some other SENA graduates that day:

And this SENA communications instructor was there to make a documentary on our visit for the local media. During our visit we saw the strong focus Gramalote has on safety and environment:

"Act with responsibility" and "Passion for safety" are slogans you see everywhere. The fleet of cars are constantly checked and drivers are trained to secure the cars as if they are aircrafts on the ramp:

Recycling is a constant message everywhere and organization of the work is clear:

After this inspiring visit to a company which also pays attention to gender mainstreaming, we were invited to a party of the Cisneros SENA training center staff in honor of the annual "Dia de Mujer" or "world women's day". A few impressions of this joyfull event where dancing shoes were required!

 

And what better photo to close this post with than Bibiana and Juan Guillermo dancing together after three emotional and busy days? Both these SENA Managers are incredible hard workers who have already earned their stripes and who are both turning into real EFE program "champions". The coming week I will be with them (and a few others) in the mining community of Santa Rosa del Sur in the south of the Bolivar province. Next weekend a post on that community as well as some non-work related posts on the cities of Lima (Peru), Mompox (Bolivar's/Colombia's first independent city after the colonial period) and Medellin. Also a post on a large SENA training center in Medellin with applied health training program practical laboratories which are of an equal quality as at the Canadian colleges. Colombia.... still a country of large contrasts... still a way to go.....