Education across all levels to business mentorship and leadership training, is key to improving lives of workers and their families during a mine’s life and beyond. It’s clear that education, of all kinds and all levels, from children’s schooling to business mentorship and leadership training, is key to improving lives of workers and their families during a mine’s life and beyond. Very often the focus is on women, whose education can be neglected or overlooked in traditional cultures, or simply not available. In Canada, De Beers Group provides scholarships for up to 40 girls and women to study STEM subjects at university, principally the University of Calgary.
A three-year partnership with WomEng also raises awareness of science and technology-based subjects, along with career advice, for girls in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa where the group has mining interests. In the North-West Territories, explains McLeod, the Mine Training Society, a collaboration of diamond Mines, governments and Aurora College and schools, has developed training and apprenticeship programs to provide northern inhabitants with portable skills and opportunities. Business opportunities also allow NWT companies to be competitive and survive in a tough business environment