The founder, Terry Garde, of our partner organisation, Foundations for Mining (F4M), has just returned from a two week trip to Zimbabwe.
During his visit he had numerous meetings with Foundations for Farming, known there as Pfumvudza, which is a Shona word for Spring. There is a wish in Zimbabwe to improve the relationship between rural farmers and artisanal gold miners, who are digging up lands in their pursuit of the precious metal, at any cost.
Terry went to the Cotton Training Centre near Kadoma to familiarise himself with the potential of the facility to address and educate miners in this regard. Not only is the centre entirely capable of supplying classroom training, but there are also maintenance workshops, in-house accommodation and catering available, and it is situated a mere 5k from one of the larger towns in the Midlands Province.
Dozens of artisanal gold miners are working the soils, rocks, and streams within two kilometres of the centre, where F4M is now planning to use CTC as a base from which to demonstrate better mining and processing methods, providing practical help on active mining sites.
In short, the offer to use CTC by the Trust that owns the property, is a fantastic opportunity for both proper (STEM) training of miners, and to promote mutual value gains for the stakeholders involved.
With this roadmap for the way forward, Terry is now assembling a core team and preparing project funding proposals.