Tunatazama - Community Monitors

Community Alerts/ Lorraine Kakaza/Carolina-Mpumalanga/30 Sep 17

Today we had a meeting with the community of Vosman today and doing the preparations for the Tete comrades that are coming to South Africa and the group of Vosman will be hosting us.
There were many challenges that were raised when it comes to mines it destroys our wellbeing, health and the environment. They have talked about fear and the attacks that takes place in their area because they are divided.
Cracked houses is the biggest issue that has been raised several times, the community structure has written several letters to the ward councillor but never responded as they wanted to talk about the issues they have around the community. To their surprise they haven’t spoken to the councillor but changes are being made to alarm the mines about the issues in the community by the councillor. He once told the community that the cracks can’t be fixed as they need to have the machine that fix cracks but said the machine is not affordable as its too expensive.

What stood up strongly today is that they need to write a proposal letter to department of minerals and resources, to involve the councillor in the meetings to make him understand the issues. They need safety measures to be put in place. Letters have been written before but there was no response, the letters have been handed to the mines instead in return they got threats.
This issue affect everyone whether you work at the mine or you are unemployed it’s the same at the end of the day your life is in danger due to the sicknesses that have been brought by the mines, we drink poisonous water everything is a mess and it is our duty to fix all these problems in order to live a healthy lifestyle and protect the new generations starting today..
This shows that we have shaken up the mines the reason being some mines said they are leaving in a period of two to Five months as their contracts are ending. Their worry is that what about the danger premises the mines are leaving, what will happen to the land, and the damages they have caused.
All this will be on the exchange with the comrades from Mozambique and in building a relationship in sharing mining experiences.