Top 5 firms feted at Asia Mining Congress in Singapore
Now in its third year, the awards program for community development initiatives aims to showcase specific projects and activities undertaken by mining companies operating in Asia over the last year. Organizers invited all mining companies with projects in Asia to submit their initiatives for consideration.
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Above, TVIRD Canatuan Acting General Manager (standing, third from left) hands over a symbolic check to Siocon Subanon Women’s Association, Inc. President Ana Combi (second from right) as seed fund for the Micro-Financing Program. Below, a poster at the Asia Mining Congress in Singapore announces the top five finalists in the Sustainability Awards.bove, Ariel Maghanoy (left), MSKS site manager, confers with Eric Tumasis, MSKS chief mechanic (far right) and a driver to make sure that TVIRD’s safety plan for contractors is strictly implemented. Maghanoy says the contractors’ excellent safety record is due in large part to the close supervision of TVIRD’s Safety Department.
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PanAust won the top award for its village development project at its Phu Kam mine camp in Laos involving the promotion of market gardening and the development of processes and systems to ensure the program’s success. The other Sustainability Award finalists were Erdene Resource Development (Mongolia), MMG (also in Laos), and Nautilus Minerals (Papua New Guinea).
The members of the panel of judges were David Brereton, Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, University of Queensland, Australia; Karsten Fuelster, Senior Investment Officer of the International Finance Corporation, Indonesia; and Kathryn McPhail, Senior Program Director of the International Council on Mining and Metals, United Kingdom.
“We are pleased to have been recognized by the distinguished panel of judges for our social development efforts for our Subanon indigenous people, specifically the women in the tribe,” Cliff James, Chairman of TVIRD and President and CEO of TVI Pacific Inc (TVIRD’s Canadian affiliate), said. “Traditionally not allowed to hold leadership positions and not treated as equal to men, the Subanon women of Canatuan have – with the help of TVIRD’s various empowerment initiatives such as the Micro-Financing Project – discovered creativity in themselves which, in turn, has helped them gain self-confidence and the realization that they have the power to improve the quality of life in their homes, families, and community.”
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The family of Ely Tumangkis now earns an additional P20,000 from her variety store business that she put up using the money she borrowed from the Micro-Financing Project.
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Micro-Financing is TVIRD’s “soft loan” project aimed at providing qualified tribal women of Canatuan a reasonable amount of credit that they will use to start a small business to enable them to increase their household income.
The Project seeks to, first, enable SSWAI members to start their own small businesses; second, encourage two-income households in the community where women bring home additional funds to support their families’ needs; third, teach women to generate income independently from their husbands; and fourth, provide a sustainable livelihood opportunity for SSWAI members and their families even after TVIRD ceases its operations in Canatuan.
In implementing the Microfinancing Project, TVIRD set aside a fund from its Social Development Management Plan (SDMP), one of the regulatory requirements for the community aspect of TVIRD’s Sulphide Project. From this amount, a separate budget was allocated for the Project’s low-interest loans to members of the Siocon Subanon Women’s Association, Inc. (SSWAI) while the bulk of fund was put in a time deposit account at the Rural Bank of Siocon. Interests on this account will be added to the loan budget, as will the payments to be made by SSWAI members who have received loans from the fund.
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Nanida Limbang says she can now help her grandchildren financially to attain their dream of finishing their studies, which their parents were not able to realize.
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SSWAI members also participated in TVIRD-sponsored training programs on entrepreneurship and financial literacy, as well as seminars on how to save money, on values formation, and on the importance of helping each other and of paying debts on time. SSWAI officers and area coordinators spearheaded the conduct of the information-education-communication campaign on the project among association members.
Out of the first 10 borrowers, seven were able to complete payment of their loans, enabling SSWAI to release loans to a second set of 10 borrowers . As of end-December 2009 – less than six months after the launching of the Project – there were already 20 Micro-Financing loan borrowers, majority of whom became Canatuan’s new women entrepreneurs.
The first seven borrowers who were able to pay their loans in full have also opened their own savings accounts in the Rural Bank of Siocon with the 10% of the 20% loan interest as their initial savings.
The Project has so far helped an overwhelming majority of the borrowers to realize an average additional family income of nearly P8,600.
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Nida Billones vowed that her children will not suffer the same discrimination she suffered by sending them to school.
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The Microfinancing Project is part of TVIRD’s Sustainable Livelihood Quadrant, one of the company’s “Quadrants of Development” that it pursues to provide the basic needs of its host and impact communities in the hinterlands of poverty-stricken rural Mindanao. The other Quadrants are Responsive Education, Health and Sanitation, and Basic Infrastructure.
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The Sustainability Awards Night brochure summarizing the programs of the Top 5 Finalists.
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