Twitter

Barrick Gold Corporation

Barrick Gold Empowers Women in Papua New Guinea

 

This article is from the April 2009 issue of Beyond Borders: A Barrick Gold Report on Responsible Mining.

 

 

About Porgera Joint Venture, PNG

  • Barrick is the operator (95 per cent interest), PNG government and landowners (5 per cent)
  • 2, 500 employee and over 500 contractors
  • Significant investments in health, education, skills training, infrastructure and local business development
  • A partner in the “Restoring Justice Initiative”,  a government community effort to strengthen law and order, which encompasses issues such as violence against women

Women in Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Valley, home to the Porgera Joint Venture mine, are using resources provided by the company to pursue higher education, gain new skills and become financially independent.

Through its assistance programs, the Porgera mine is helping local Porgeran women become respected members and leaders in a society that has traditionally been male-dominated. In 1999, the company funded the establishment of the Porgera District
Women’s Association, a non-governmental organization that now has a membership of more than 2,000 women across 20 wards in PNG. With financial support from the mine, the group is providing local women with training in leadership and management skills, health and education, law and order, micro business and agriculture.

 

 

 

MICRO CREDIT SCHEME

One of the association’s most successful programs is the micro credit scheme project, which loans money to women for small-scale projects that generate income. The program has a very successful 99.9 per cent repayment rate. Since it commenced in 2000, it has enabled 181 women to become self-reliant.

Read more

Barrick Gold’s Tanzanian Corporate Social Responsibility: The Lake Zone Health Initiative

 

 

 

 

 

Barrick's Lake Zone Health Initiative in Tanzania
Barrick's Lake Zone Health Initiative in Tanzania

 This article is from the April 2010 issue of Beyond Borders: A Barrick Gold Report on Responsible Mining. The Lake Zone Health Initiative was established by Barrick to help combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and improve access to health services for underserved populations. This collaborative effort involves the Tanzanian government, aid agencies and other partners.

They are called the Big Three. They are HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Together, they kill thousands of people each year in Tanzania.

These life-threatening diseases pose a serious risk to employees in the mining sector and communities near mining operations, resulting in soaring health care costs and a high rate of employee absenteeism.

Building on a long history of providing successful disease prevention programs in Tanzania, in 2008 Barrick launched the Lake Zone Health Initiative in an effort to improve health services to underserved populations in the Lake Zone region. Home to nine million residents, Tanzania’s Lake Zone wraps around Lake Victoria and spans seven regions, including the Mara and Kahama districts where the Bulyanhulu, Buzwagi and North Mara mines are located. While these mines are now operated by African Barrick Gold, the new public company created by Barrick earlier this year, the commitment to continue this flagship community health program remains as strong as ever.

The public-private sector health initiative is making it possible for companies, the government, health NGOs and donors like USAID to work collaboratively together to combat HIV, malaria and TB.

Read more

Barrick Gold’s Dominican Republic’s Environmental Clean-up Reflects Modern Industry Approach – by Nancy White

This article is from the April 2010 issue of Beyond Borders: A Barrick Gold Report on Responsible Mining.

At the Pueblo Viejo project in the Dominican Republic, one of the most ambitious environmental clean-up efforts in recent mining history is underway. When the former Rosario Dominicana mine shut down its operations in 1999, proper closure and reclamation was not undertaken. The result has been a legacy of polluted soil and water and contaminated infrastructure.

Barrick acquired the property in 2006 as part of the Placer Dome acquisition. Today, what was once a hazardous area has been transformed into a safe and busy construction site, as some 4,500 employees and contractors converge to build the new Pueblo Viejo.

The clean-up is also creating a healthier living environment for nearby residential communities that have also been affected.

A Partnership Approach

Responsibility for the clean-up is shared between Pueblo Viejo Dominicana Corp. (PVDC), a company jointly owned by Barrick (60%) and Goldcorp (40%), and the Dominican government. A special lease agreement (SLA), which set out the terms for both parties, was ratified by the Dominican National Congress and President Leonel Fernandez in November 2009.

Read more

Barrick Target of Yellow Journalism – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Toronto’s Barrick Gold, being the world’s biggest gold miner, is also on the receiving end of the world’s worst media abuses. “Yellow journalism” has not gone out of style, and today the Internet provides the means of spreading disinformation worldwide at speeds unheard of a century ago.

Case in point. Headline: “Deadly toxin invades Barrick’s Dominican gold mine, Thousands hospitalized.”

Those are eye-catching words, but no more accurate than the picture of artisanal miners identified as the “Barrick Gold mine in Coui, Dominican Republic” used to illustrate the article.

The article posted at www.BusinessInsider.com went on to say that over 1,000 people were felled by an unknown chemical so toxic that health care workers who attended them had to wear masks. It also reported a boiler explosion at the site that may have been the root of the problem.

Read more

Barrick Gold Brings Artisanal Miners into the Fold – by Nancy J. White

Tanzania’s Artisanal Miners Often Work in Unsafe ConditionsThis article was first published in “Beyond Borders”, a BARRICK GOLD quarterly report on responsible mining, edited by Nancy J. White, the company’s communications director for responsible mining. “Beyond Borders” contains several other items highlighting Barrick’s initiatives around the world. It will be posted soon at www.barrick.com.

At age 13, Alfaxad Chacha started digging. He never stopped. Seven days a week, 14 hours a day, he sifted through the red mud and rock of the Tanzanian landscape under an equatorial sun. With a little luck and a lot of backbreaking labour, Alfaxad and his friends eked out a meagre living on the miniscule bits of gold they uncovered.

It was difficult work, using dangerous explosives and toxic chemicals. But for 1.5 million Tanzanians, this primitive form of artisanal mining is a daily reality.

Today, Chacha is 50 years old. He lives in the village of Kerende in Tanzania’s Mara region. A life of digging for gold under the ground has hardened him.

“I am an artisanal gold miner. I have been all my life and so were my parents before me, but I’m not too proud of what I do,” Chacha says. “My work is barely able to support me, my family and my community. It is very hard work for very little money. This is not the life I dreamt of, but it is all I have.”

Like many others, Chacha spends his days digging, crushing and grinding ore, to unlock the small particles of gold it contains. He sells his product for a fraction of its true value to gold dealers who pass through the village. It’s part of an underground gold industry in Tanzania – one with no government regulation or oversight of any kind.

Read more

Barrick Gold and World Vision Fight Child Malnutrition in Peru

Photo-Philip Maher, World Vision

In the mountainous rural regions of Peru, malnutrition affects six out of every 10 children. Many children living in poverty subsist on a daily diet limited to basic starches like potatoes, while lacking other essential food groups. This daily diet may relieve hunger, however it fails to support proper growth and development or defend against diseases.

Barrick and World Vision Canada have teamed up with local residents in a collaborative approach to tackle these problems in communities surrounding the company’s mines in Peru. The project started in May 2003, when Barrick made an initial commitment of US$1 million over five years to help impoverished families near its Pierina mine. Building on the success of the first program, in 2007 Barrick contributed a further US$1.3 million to start up a similar project near its Lagunas Norte mine in northern Peru. World Vision has complemented Barrick’s funding thorough its popular child sponsorship program, which is supporting over 3,000 children in these areas.

“Our partnership with World Vision is based on a shared vision of children free from the dangers of malnutrition and illness, with access to clean water and education,” says Greg Wilkins, Barrick President and CEO, “Strong, healthy children are able to perform better in school and can go on to achieve their potential later in life.” 

Read more

Barrick Gold/NGO Partnership Makes Dental Care in Tanzania a Reality

Dentist from Bridge2Aid in Rural Tanzania Photo Supplied by Barrick GoldOver 5,000 villagers living in Tanzania’s Lake Victoria area have received free emergency dental care, thanks to a unique partnership Barrick established with Bridge2Aid in 2003. Bridge2Aid is a British NGO specializing in providing dental care in Tanzania, where experts estimate 70 to 90 per cent of the population have no access to dental care.  

Barrick’s involvement began five years ago, when the company’s chief medical officer, Dr. Rob Barbour, recognized that dental problems were becoming increasingly serious at the Bulyanhulu mine in Tanzania. In many cases, employees were experiencing significant pain and infection associated with oral health issues. At that time there was only one option: patients were referred to a dentist in Dar es Salaam, over 800 kilometers away. As a result, employees spent more time away from the mine site and productivity began to suffer.

Meanwhile, for other residents living in the Lake Victoria area where Barrick’s mines are located, oral health care was virtually out of reach. This lack of accessible dental services reflects a larger, country-wide trend. Today in Tanzania there is only one dentist for every 300,000 people, in contrast to the United States where there is one dentist for every 1,700 people. Moreover, many economically disadvantaged Tanzanians lack the income to pay for and maintain good oral health.

Read more