JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Following the success of the new Bon Pasteur child protection centre in Kolwezi, in the Lualaba province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), diversified natural resources group Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) is aiming to replicate the centre’s model in the community of Tshala, near the company’s Metalkol RTR site.

This forms part of the company’s longstanding partnership with the Good Shepherd International Foundation, through which the Bon Pasteur programme has helped address acute challenges faced by local communities including forced child labour, gender-based violence, food insecurity and a lack of vital social infrastructure.

The centre is expected to accommodate almost 1 000 children in 14 newly equipped classrooms in the Kanina – Domain Marial artisanal cobalt mining community.

The group’s decision to support the programme forms part of its wider commitment to strengthen the socioeconomic development of local communities in the DRC and across other operating regions and, in particular, to support children out of mining.

Considering that the DRC is home to more than two-thirds of global cobalt reserves, CEO Benedikt Sobotka explains to Mining Weekly Online that the DRC is of strategic importance, “not only to the group, but also to the responsible value chain”.

According to a recent report by the Global Battery Alliance, titled ‘A vision for a sustainable battery value chain in 2030’, demand for cobalt, which is a key metal supporting the electric vehicle revolution, will quadruple by 2030 as a result of its increased use in batteries.

The study also highlighted the need to address forced and child labour, which is often linked to the small-scale, artisanal mining sector (ASM) in countries including the DRC, Sobotka noted.

Additionally, the Global Battery Alliance’s report found that sustainable batteries can support the creation of up to ten million jobs by 2030, over half of which would be spread among emerging countries.

Far-reaching collaboration and the creation of safe, sustainable jobs and alternative livelihood opportunities, including by the Bon Pasteur programme, may not only address the imbalances in the global value chain but also help eradicate forced and child labour and illegal labour practices, protecting vulnerable communities.

The Bon Pasteur centre model goes beyond providing free education, including healthcare, nutrition, counselling and human rights training, as well as an opportunity for families to learn about alternative livelihood opportunities. Between 2018 and the first quarter of this year, 281 women gained skills for pursuing alternative livelihoods and improved their income.

A social business initiative is also being developed with the potential for agriculture, fish farming and egg farming businesses to be developed in Kolwezi.

The protection of women and children’s rights, the establishment of farming and alternative livelihoods and strengthening citizenship will also form areas of focus of an upcoming project resulting from the replication of the Bon Pasteur model in new mining communities including Tshala.

“It is the aim of the centre to also inform and educate families about alternative livelihood opportunities which, more widely, may include egg farming, fish farming and agriculture with a view to providing employment and increasing income and food security,” Sobotka explains, adding that the pursuit of alternative livelihood opportunities may, in some cases, require a gradual shift in mindsets and perceptions.

The socioeconomic development of local communities, which includes efforts towards the eradication of child labour, is at the core of a number of ERG’s commitments, including its longstanding partnerships with the Good Shepherd International Foundation and other international nongovernmental organisations.

The latter, Sobotka tells Mining Weekly Online, aims to raise awareness of the dangers of children working in the mining sector and create apprenticeships for older children to transition out.

As a result of the Good Shepherd International Foundation and Bon Pasteur programme, more than 1 900 children have been protected from the worst types of child labour in 2018 and early this year.

Addressing child labour is also one of the core goals of ERG’s Clean Cobalt Framework, which was launched last year.

Over the past seven years, the Good Shepherd International Foundation’s Bon Pasteur programme has helped address acute challenges faced by local communities including forced child labour, gender-based violence, food insecurity and a lack of vital social infrastructure.

“We’ve been on the ground in the artisanal mining communities in Kolwezi since 2012 and our rights-based approach, integrating child protection and community development, has succeeded in getting nearly 2 000 children out of the mines and into the classroom”, Good Shepherd International Foundation director Cristina Duranti commented in a recent statement.

“Children should be in school, not in mines and that is a vision that informs a number of our strategic initiatives and commitments and it is also in line with the Global Battery Alliance’s recent report and its recommendations,” Sobotka concludes.