Gwanda State University partners young miners

GWANDA State University (GSU) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Young Miners Foundation (YMF) to facilitate improved research in the small-scale mining sector so as to promote formalisation and establishment of proper businesses. YMF chief executive officer, Mr Payne Kupfuwa, said the MoU will go a long way in creating a relationship between young miners and the academia.

He said the initial step is to start educating students who are still at college or universities on the importance of formalisation of small-scale mining and establishing viable mining businesses. Mr Kupfuwa said they wanted to shift the perception of small-scale mining from a poverty-driven or get-rich-quick scheme to a legitimate business.

“The MoU will go a long way in terms of research towards the inclination of innovation as we are working on this MoU in line with Education 5.0 innovation thrust where we also want to work together with GSU to come up with effective and efficient ways to ensure that small scale mining grows and becomes profitable,” he said.

“We are going to infuse formalisation and professionalism to them whilst they are still at school so that should they fail to get jobs from big mining houses as per their expectations, they can still establish and find themselves working or operating small scale mining projects formally and professionally and grow from small to medium and to large scale miners.

“With this MoU, we will be working hand in glove with students from mining engineering, metallurgy and relevant programmes at GSU so that they get to have an understanding on how proper small scale mining enterprises can be run.”—chroncile