GLENDA DANIELS, Johannesburg.
The Mineworkers Development Agency, the job-creation wing of the National Union of Mines, is one of the few financially sustainable organisations in South Africa.
In the face of massive job losses in the mining industry, about 300 000 over the past decade, the agency has developed a programme of support for enterprise development in communities affected by retrenchments, mainly in rural areas and mining towns.
In 1997 the Department of Trade and Industry financed a feasibility study into rapid expansion of the agency’s programme, in order for it to reach all the mine areas.
This was endorsed by the Gold Crisis Committee (set up by NUM, the Chamber of Mines and the government), and is currently being implemented with funding from a number of mining companies.
The agency’s Mhlala Development Centre won the first national Masakhane Award for Community Initiatives and was also identified by the Department of Constitutional Development as one of the 10 Local Economic Development models.
“In just two years the agency has trained more than 5 000 people to develop enterprises, and while this is only a flash in the pan in terms of job losses, the small business creation has been sustained for the most part,” says chief executive officer Kate Phillip.