by Haki Madini
A coalition promoting responsible mining
Our Stories
29 May 2018
Mr Alwar is a member of Ayiego miners group. We also met him through the community awareness forums that we conducted in 2016. In November 2016, we organized a group leader’s training where the miners formed an interim team of leaders that helped in coming up with the umbrella association of artisanal miners.
Mr Alwar was elected as the youth representative to that committee. Bearing in mind that Mr Alwar is a native guy from Nyatike who had never been to Migori before his election to the committee was a whole new level of achievement.
Subsequently, when we had a national artisanal miners’ forum in Kakamega, Mr Alwar was part of the team. He confessed how delighted he was since he had never stepped in Kisumu leave alone Kakamega. This gave him a new level of understanding of what happens in other parts of the country.
While in Kakamega, he gathered that women had a right to equal opportunities in the mining sites. Since then he has been an advocate for women's justice at mining sites and other areas that he has influence. In the group leader’s meeting held on 12th October 2017, these are the words he used in the forum:
“Since I came to know NCCK, they have given me an opportunity to gain knowledge through interactions with other miners. When we went to Kakamega, I gained knowledge that has made me realize that women have rights. We were taught that women in Taita Taveta go down into mining pits and therefore our women in Migori too should be supported to do more. We have been advocates for justice women and this has led to a reduction in gender-based violence in our homes and more so at our mining sites” He said.