Starvation and Unemployment
MENGE AGNES CHOLEDI
“We do not have anywhere to go or to cry as a community due to starvation and unemployment.”
People have started to panic because the mine is using the strategy of poverty to win the people to stand with them. They have made the community desperate so that they can control them the way they want, even our municipality is under the influence of the mine. They cannot even decide for themselves, the mine decides for them. This is informed by the fact that they know that the municipality cannot even pay their employees.
We feel that this mine is violating our Human rights and our Human dignity is destroyed by this company. Men, Women, and children are dying of hunger in front of a company that is generating a lot of billions but there is no place where we benefit. The worst part is the community trust that has not been given back to the community since 2009. We established this community trust, and the only thing they know is to take students to Graaf Rienet for hospitality studies. The trust favors only women but not men, if you are a man you do not have opportunities from the trust where we also have to benefit.
Once a year some people will be given Food Parcels from the Trust, and that is all. From my understanding, I think the Trust should have made a package for every household in Jagersfontein. After all, the community never benefited from this mine, and the mine now was meant to develop black people, because white people were developed during the ERA of Queen Elizabeth. That is why I feel that it is unfair for the community of Jagersfontein.
It’s very bad to see young people not knowing what to do and where to go, that’s why most of them take Drugs and Alcohol. That is because we are sabotaged by our leaders who were supposed to protect us.
As I write Jagersfontein is a ghost town where youth or young people are selling scrap metal and wood to bring life and food to their families. We had a scrap metal depot where we sold iron, zinc, etc just to put a meal on the table. That’s why we need to educate our people to know how to stand up for themselves unlike becoming slaves to other people, but be independent of themselves
