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A group of 20 Guineans are participating in a 10-month social management training organised by Earthworm Foundation’s Centre of Social Excellence (CSE) and supported by Alcoa Foundation.
In mid-May,
twenty Guineans travelled to the Centre of Social Excellence (CSE) in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where they started the four-month classroom component of the CSE ‘Long Course’ for social practitioners. This is the second year that this training programme — funded by Alcoa Foundation — has been offered to Guineans.
It follows the successful conclusion of the first course in December 2021. The current group of 20 Guinean participants represent companies, communities, civil society organisations and government institutions with a stake in the mining sector in Guinea, particularly in the Boké region.
The main theme of the 2022 course is “proactive social management in the Guinean mining sector.” One of its principal objectives is to build human capacity for better relations between communities and the mining companies operating nearby.
Accordingly, the current group includes five participants from local communities that are directly affected by mining operations in the Boké region.
“Our role will be to manage conflicts between the local populations and mining companies. We will also have to accompany local populations in different situations, such as when they lose their lands due to mining operations,” explains Maïmouna Gnaïssa, a participant from Landouma, a local community in Guinea’s Boké region.
Following the classroom sessions in Cameroon, the participants will return to Guinea to undertake six-month practical field projects, where they will apply newly acquired knowledge and methods to the challenges of making mining and development more inclusive, transparent and harmonious.
