By Nick Stewart
A partnership nearly ten years in the making has been formally announced between Cambrian College and the educational authority of Tanzania in an effort to export much-needed Sudbury mining knowledge to the impoverished African country.
The partnership, which has been in discussion since 1997, will last five years and find Cambrian delivering a variety of programs to the Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA) in the Tanzanian region of Mwanza.
Project funding of $400,000 is being provided by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges through the Canadian International Development Agency.
By delivering curriculum on such topics as resource management, trades and skills related to the mining sector, Cambrian will be able to provide direction to training Tanzanian facilities in need of direction and experience.
“Here you have a fairly well-established institution with a strong expertise in the mining area, and an up-and-coming country whose mineral sector has a prosperous outlook,” says Dr. Ibrahim Alladin, director, Cambrian International.
“It’s only logical that we provide them with some much-needed educational capacity.”
Like Canada, a strong surge in the Tanzanian mining sector has left the local industry with a shortage of trained personnel, choking growth in the impoverished country, Alladin says.
A few years ago, mining made up two per cent of Tanzania’s gross domestic product; but lately that percentage has grown to three per cent and continues to climb. This is in no small part due to the government’s encouragement of private sector investment and educational support.
Gold is the country’s primary mineral export, with five mines already in operation, including activity from Canadian gold miner Barrick Gold Ltd. Other prominent minerals in the region include diamonds, coal, nickel, tin, phosphates, and tanzanite.
Enock Kibendela, regional director of the Mwanza Vocational Educational Training Authority (MRVC), says this partnership with Cambrian will enable Tanzanian training facilities to accommodate a greater percentage of new students, but will also enhance existing courses with Canadian mining expertise.
According to Kibendela, this will immerse new workers into the workforce more quickly. By providing a higher level of education and instilling a greater degree of skill in graduates, the program allows companies to reduce the necessary amount of in-house training.
This infusion of mining-related knowledge and experience is necessary to mitigate several other problems that arise from the upswing of mining, Kibendela says.
These problems are not restricted to human resource issues, and stem partially from the country’s numerous small-scale or artisanal miners.
In a country with an average annual per-capita income of $327US, mining is seen as an option for many who enter the field as relatively independent artisanal miners. They travel in small groups and use simplistic tools to extract gems and minerals from the earth, which are then sold through a broker or middle-man in a town square.
In the northern Tanzanian town of Geita, up to as many as 150,000 of the 800,000 residents use this as a means of survival.
“They sweep in, dig down to the foot rock, and then they leave very quickly,” he says. “Many people see them as fortune hunters.”
This rapid-fire approach leaves the local environment devastated, and poses serious safety issues for the workers as the lack of proper knowledge leaves them open to potentially lethal hazards. These include the inhalation of gold sand, or exposure to mercury used in gold extraction processes.
With these concerns in mind, Alladin says Cambrian has much to offer to such small-scale miners, including safety procedures, environmental sustainability as well as the ability to market themselves and their products. By using Cambrian-enhanced programs to learn to polish their gems before selling them to a broker, artisanal miners will be able to enhance their earning power and thus their quality of life.
“Cambrian will help to act as a model for the Mwanza region,” says Alladin.
