© ARM
12 December 2013
For the first time, the 2nd Regional Workshop of 2013 brought together miners from Bolivia, Colombia and Peru and jewelers the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Excited to experience the reality of artisanal mining and establish direct contact with mining organizations, the jewelers participated actively in the dialogues and sessions held on commercialization, the FAIRMINED certification system, production costs and communication for development.
As part of the event, the miners had the opportunity to actively participate in the mining exhibition: the FAIRMINED FAIR. Through a display of messages and images representing the mining organizations the miners shared their experiences and commitment to the adoption of best practices. A total of 26 mining organizations participated: 8 from Colombia, 4 from Bolivia and 14 from Peru (9 of which are involved in the Solidaridad Fair Gold project.
The activity that made the biggest impression on the participants was the visit to AURELSA and the local community of Relave. Wearing helmets and safety lights, more than 45 workshop participants explored the mining tunnel “Diana and Juanita”, and learned processes and technologies employed by AURELSA, one of the four FAIRMINED certified mining companies in Latin America.
During the 5-day event, jewelers and OMAPEs identified the following two key lessons learned when commercializing gold:
1. Effective and direct communications between mining organizations and jewelers are essential to build relationships of trust and obtain mutual understanding of their diverse realities.
2. Miners and Jewelers must share and agree on schedules and consider market trends (supply and demand).
The workshop was part of the project “Strengthening incentives for formalization and improved environmental and social performance in Artisanal and Small-scale Mining in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru”, which is mainly funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB-MIF), Fondo Acción and Fundación Ayuda. It was carried out from 11 to 15 November in Chala, Peru, with support from the our Peruvian ally Red Social and Solidaridad Network. Other partners and allies also participated such as Cumbre del Sajama (Bolivia), ASOMIRCOL (Colombia) and Ethical Metalsmiths.