By Business Reporter – Tuesday 12 May 2020
LOCAL – HARARE (Mining Index) – A LEADING Zimbabwean businesswoman and miner says she is in the process of registering a Trust, Empowering Women Miners (EWM) aimed at supporting, capacitating and empowering marginalised women seeking to venture into mining.
Chiedza Chipangura is a renowned businesswoman who is into broiler chicken farming and grocery retail.
Her mining ventures include a glitter stone mine in Kariba and a gold mine in Zhombe.
She said the Trust will assist women interested in mining to have an opportunity to venture into the extractives sector through access to a communal claim where they will be able to mine and raise money to acquire claims or blocks registered in their own name.
Chipangura has also managed to organise online presentations for women in mining and for those wishing to take mining as a career. The online presentations are meant to educate and empower women on the fundamentals of mining and other topics related to mining.
“Online presentations are a way of capacity building for the women. Most women do not have capital. If I get one claim registered, form a trust and get women to work, chances are that by the end of the year, each woman will be having acclaim of her own,” she said.
She said the thrust is to have 10 groups of women on one claim, and they can then employ other people to assist them, thereby creating employment.
Chipangura said she was inspired to empower women after noting that most women cannot afford to pay registration fees and other related charges needed to acquire a claim.
Women have been marginalised for a long time and Women in Mining support groups have been formed to change the macho culture operating within the mining sector.
Chipangura attended the Zimbabwe School of Mines (ZSM) where she studied Mining Fundamentals in 2018.
She is also chairperson for the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) Mashonaland West province. ENDS// www.miningindex.co.zw
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