After a long hour of chaotic and dusty off-road driving, we arrive in the village where we are expected. Looking for some shade, we park the vehicle under a huge ancestral Kapok tree. The « land chief », we called a little earlier, is waiting for us there. He holds in his hand an old bike
There are many different challenges faced by the artisanal miner, one of which is technical challenges. We have seen mining shafts as deep as 80 meters (260 feet) with small air hoses that miners’ breath into, securing themselves with hemp ropes. The lack of precautionary safety measures puts the miners’ lives at risk on
Have you ever visited an artisanal mining village, deep in the African bush? We speak of a village, but is it really one? In reality, there are hundreds, even thousands of huts that intertwine to make up and organize the artisanal gold mining collectivity. The houses are made of straw or canvas and tin roofs.
In many commonly referred to « emerging » nations, the informal sector is often predominant in shaping the economic fabric, compared to the « formal » sector. It is generally thought that when a person doesn’t register his business, this is done in order to avoid paying taxes. Very often, people’s lack of confidence in their government, their financial
One of the building blocks of Barksanem™’s mining vision is « people » and more broadly their « community« . The management team of Barksanem™ adhere to the belief that without man there is no business, no market, no supply chain, no value chain, no blockchain etc. Technology, organizations, capital and even the end product make sense only if
When visiting the many artisanal mining sites in Burkina Faso, where thousands of gold miners gather, women are everywhere. Not only in the food preparation area, or in the small restaurants along the dusty roads, or in the shops that make up the mining village, but much closer to the mines themselves, and sometimes even
