{"id":2783,"date":"2005-08-26T15:38:07","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T14:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yummy-wakame.com\/archives\/2005\/08\/26\/women-miners-plunge-to-new-debths-in-south-africa\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T15:38:07","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T14:38:07","slug":"women-miners-plunge-to-new-depths-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/2005\/08\/women-miners-plunge-to-new-depths-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Women miners plunge to new depths in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

From TheGoodNews<\/a> newsletter:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"The sweat is dripping off her face. The noise from the rock drill is deafening and water droplets are spitting through the air. Her whole body is vibrating and straining as she grasps the drill. Nandipha Nxiweni is a Learner Official at Impala Platinum Mine in Rustenburg. She is training to be a rock engineer and, as part of her training, she has to learn how to do all the other things in the mine as well, including actual manual labour.<\/p>\n

She is part of the new Women in Mining programme implemented by Implats in response to the mining charter. The charter stipulates that all mines should have a 10 percent representation of women in mining by 2009. The Women in Mining project was only implemented in June 2004 and already Implats have got over 300 women working underground.<\/strong> According to Johanna Tau, the Transformation Manager at Impala Platinum, Rustenburg, they aim not only to achieve the targets but to do better than the targets. “Only good can be achieved by the amalgamation of men and women into the mining environment. They complement and bring out the best in each other.”<\/p>\n

However, what first needs to be understood is the difference between women in mining and women at the mine. Women have been working at mines for years, mostly in admin and secretarial positions. The targets stipulated by the charter in those fields have already been met, or are very close to being realised. The target set for women in mining is much more difficult. It requires the women to be put into positions equivalent to the men, in other words to do the manual labour associated with mining.<\/p>\n

\"\"This target is not just a question of placing women in the right jobs, but challenges years of tradition in the male-dominated underground environment. The nature of the job is hazardous and extensive training is required. They also have to be suited and, most importantly, want to do the job. The women are subjected to rigorous testing for heat tolerance and put through a comprehensive two week training programme before they are even allowed underground.<\/p>\n

The women selected have had no previous experience in mining. The Rustenburg Municipality keeps tabs of the women who are unemployed in the area, and it is these women who are approached by Impala Platinum. The salary associated with doing a manual labour mining job is much higher than the average for the area, and the women get additional bonuses if the targets for the shaft are met. It is, therefore, not very difficult to convince the women to go underground, but it does challenge a range of conventions, traditions and norms.<\/p>\n

So what has been the reaction to women underground? One of the main concerns when the project was first started was that the men would react adversely to the integration of women into a previously male-dominated environment.<\/p>\n

Happily, and to some, somewhat surprisingly, this has not been the case. Impala Platinum, sensing they had one chance to get this right, launched a campaign to create a heightened awareness of what the new integration would involve. A call-centre was established to deal with any queries that the men had. The issues of sexual harassment, training, the upgrading of the ablution facilities and social interaction were discussed. There were also meetings held by the mine bosses with the men before they started their shift that addressed the issues of the imminent change. Says Carla Radcliff, from the Transformation Department, “The only questions we got were from concerned miners checking to see whether they had handled a situation properly. Not once did we get a complaint from a miner about the women themselves”.<\/p>\n

This comprehensive campaign resulted in the men being knowledgeable about all that was required of them once the women started working. According to Johanna, the men have taken the women under their wings and have adopted a mentor-like approach to the whole initiative.<\/p>\n

Life underground does not mirror life on the surface. The miners work in eight-hour shifts and lunch breaks are non-existent. Temperatures reach 32\u00c2\u00b0C and the environment is harsh and unforgiving. The tunnels are cramped, muddy and slippery underfoot. In many areas there is only enough space to crawl and, were you to switch your lamp off, the darkness would engulf you. Many a man would be forgiven for saying he could not cope with the conditions – and many have! Instead of dropping the women in the deep end (literally) and expecting them to cope by themselves, the male miners have instead started teaching the women the tricks of the trade and, through this mentorship, the women have been smoothly integrated into the workings of the complicated, and dangerous, environment that an underground operation is.<\/p>\n

Insignificant as it may seem, one of the biggest challenges faced by Impala Platinum was the upgrading of the ablution facilities. Previously, the toilets were open with only a door about a metre wide separating the men using the toilet from the men walking down the corridors. Now, a separate room has been added at each of Impala Platinum’s 13 working shafts that has full doors and can be locked to ensure privacy.<\/p>\n

Happily, there are lighter moments. It is normal procedure to bring a cake to work when it is your birthday\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6if you work in a corporate environment. However, this is not so normal in the mining environment. This did not deter one woman, who felt that the miners should celebrate with her on her birthday. So she brought a cake to work and took it underground. In an unprecedented move, the miners took a break halfway through the day and proceeded to eat cake and celebrate her birthday in the cramped, unpleasant, tunnels\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and thoroughly enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

Another story is told of how the men, the spectre of a sexual harassment suit looming largely in their minds, taught the women how to make a space for themselves in the cramped cages that transport the miners underground. These cages are approximately 4m X 2m and have to fit 40 miners per trip. It works out to five miners per square metre. Quite a squash! “They said we must run into the back of the cage, spread-eagle our arms and legs against the back wall and stick out our bums. Only once the cage is full and moving must we relax, and suddenly we have a lot more space to ourselves.” The cage then proceeds to travel downwards at a speed of 12m per second, enough to make anybody but a seasoned miner squeamish!<\/p>\n

What is most difficult for the women is that they do not have peers to serve as role-models of what can be achieved. But, stressed Johanna, the women who have been recruited are groundbreakers in their own right and are, therefore, wholly suited to the initial challenges that are faced.<\/p>\n

The implementation of the Women in Mining project is in many respects uniquely South African. The effort on the mines to making the transformation a reality is nothing short of amazing. The South Africa example of women in mining is one that the world can wholly learn from.<\/p>\n

If the first six months, a period usually associated with glitches and problems, are anything to go by, then achieving the targets stipulated by the charter should be achievable in Impala Platinum – 27 000 women in mining by 2009!<\/p>\n

Rose Maote started working at Impala Platinum in 1999. That is five years before the Women in Mining project was first implemented. Instead of choosing the more travelled path of pursuing a career in Rustenburg town, she decided to enter the field of mining. Her parents had always encouraged her to swim against the stream and, for her, this career choice seemed the perfect opportunity to continue her life’s dreams. Flying in the face of adversity, she was one of the first women to start mining, as a geologist, at Impala Platinum. She settled in very well and is now almost part of the furniture as far the men are concerned. As she puts it: “The men need us, without us in the mine they would be half the men they are today”.<\/p>\n

See also: SA a world leader in seismic monitoring<\/a><\/strong>
\nEstablished in a nation built on mining, a South African company has become the world leader in seismic monitoring.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to the free newsletter<\/a> for more good news from South Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From TheGoodNews newsletter: The sweat is dripping off her face. The noise from the rock drill is deafening and water droplets are spitting through the air. Her whole body is vibrating and straining as she grasps the drill. Nandipha Nxiweni is a Learner Official at Impala Platinum Mine in Rustenburg. She is training to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,213,274],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogalog","category-food-for-thought","category-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}