High on this year’s agenda for the Guyana Women’s Miners Organisation (GWMO) is the acquisition of a piece of land in Bartica to build a home for victims of trafficking in persons and child labour, the organisation’s President Simona Broomes has revealed.
“This year we want to solicit from the government a piece of land. We want to build a home for victims of trafficking in persons…,” Broomes told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview and later added that children who are subjected to child labour will also be accommodated at the home.
Broomes, recently back from two conferences—one in Canada that dealt with mining and another dealing with gender in Grenada—said her organisation hopes to get funding for this initiative from the investors in the mining sector and feels this would not be difficult as everyone would want to give a young boy or girl a second chance in life.
As a matter of fact, Broomes said, the organisation has already received pledges from persons to support the project but it first needs to acquire a piece of land.
It is expected that a meeting would soon be scheduled with Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Alli to discuss the issue.
Broomes said the plan is for the home to be built in Bartica and a piece of land has already been identified. It is envisioned that the home will have ten rooms and will be divided into two sections–one for boys and another for girls. It will also have a library, information technology room and facilities for indoor and outdoor recreation for the children.
“Because what we have found is that boys and girls, and we are dealing here with girls more, who are trafficked, they have a different attitude towards life and they need special counselling so we are hoping that we would have a counselling area set up,” Broomes said.
The home is expected to provide long-term accommodation for its residents as it is for those who do not have ideal homes to return to after they would have been rescued. They will remain at the home at least up to the age of 18. The GWMO hopes to send the victims to school or expose them to special training so that they could move on to become productive adults.
“It is something my organisation wants to do because as we speak there is no special home for trafficking victims and I think it is a major setback. In fact to be honest I would like to see a home in every region, not only in Bartica…,” she said.
Broomes said the organisation had shared this vision with Minister of Human Services and Social Security Jennifer Webster who had warmed to the idea. The GWMO hopes to have a follow-up meeting with her to further discuss the issue.
It is hoped that by the end of the year the foundation would be laid.
“I am calling on all the investors and even persons who are not into mining to support this venture because the money will be well spent. At the end of the day it is people who will be benefiting from it. All of us who are parents, the same way we would long for a brilliant future for our children we would also want a future for all these girls who fall into difficulties,” Broomes encouraged.
Broomes said in its second year the plan is to move the organisation to a different level. Discussions are underway to garner sponsorship for a booklet which will state its “dreams and objectives which we would hand out and it will say what we intend to do, how intend to achieve, what kind of support we are looking for, how could government support us, how could the private sector support us and things like that.”
She said there are plans to visit all the districts and raise funds since there is much more to do in combating trafficking.
Mining conference
Meanwhile, Broomes and 30 of her members recently returned from the Prospective Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) International Conven-tion Trade Show & Investors Exchange held in Toronto.
She said their attendance was facilitated by the Canadian High Commissions in Guyana and Trinidad as 11 members previously without visas were granted.
According to Broomes, they were invited to the March 3-6 event by the Canadian High Com-mission here since during the event there was what is called a Guyana day hosted where investors and those interested in investing will participate. There was also a Suriname day and they were invited to that session too. Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud also attended the event.
Broomes said she was impressed with what she saw at the Suriname day because of the kind exploration and layout the investors have in that country with the government in control. She was also impressed with the number of investors in that country and the many who are pleading for the government to expand as there are others who want to invest.
“The Guyana day, the minister [Persaud] was there and some of the investors but… it was not … what I saw with Suriname in terms of investors and the magnitude of the exploration…,” Broomes noted.
She pointed out that the mandate of the companies who invest in Suriname is that they have to follow through with their plans as against many companies in Guyana that have access to mineral land, which is then stagnated because the companies do not honour the work programmes they submitted.
According to Broomes, the GWMO members who attended the conference found that it was educational as they were able to understand what mining is like in the world today as opposed to just being exposed to what happens in Guyana. She said the exposure has given them a different perspective; they better understand the kind of prospection needed when working a piece of land after listening to some of the presentations from the geologists. She said they also learned more about hard rock mining, which is not how small and medium-scale miners work, since they are more involved in alluvial mining.
“I think it [the conference] has enhanced us… The knowledge gained on health and safety and those kinds of things, we will definitely impart to our membership and in our sensitisation and outreach programmes. We could definitely share with our fellow miners, both male and female…,” Broomes told this newspaper.
The organisation will have a workshop with its members to impart some of the knowledge gained by those who attended the conference.
On its website PDAC said that the four-day annual convention has grown in size, stature and influence since it began in 1932 and today is the event of choice for the world’s mineral industry. There were over 1,000 exhibitors and 30,369 attendees from 125 countries. It also offered technical sessions and short courses as well as social and networking events.
From Toronto, Broomes travelled to Grenada for another conference, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) gender group conference which was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Broomes said she represented Guyana and the GWMO at the two-day meeting in Grenada and some of the recommendations she made were well accepted.
She said because women miners work in a male dominated world she lobbied for training for women in Guyana. However, the training would not be exclusively for women as men would be included. The training is earmarked to take place at the Linden Technical Institute and the area of training will focus on heavy-duty machinery. The training will also focus on ensuring that gender is respected in the mining industry. With the training, Broomes feels, women will not only be limited to the mining sector but they can also gain employment in quarry, construction or forestry industries.
According to Broomes, there have been complaints from time to time from men who would point out that women would be hired to cook and then they would expect men to fetch the water for them, when they are fighting for gender equality.
“We are saying if you want to take these jobs, you have to be prepared for them. You have to know it is your responsibility because the male is earning his salary and you are earning yours. It is up to him… and sometimes some of our men will be protective and try to help the woman, but it is up to them and we must not look to them as if they have to do it for us…,” Broomes said.
