Community learning exchanges

One of our most successful community-based initiatives involves facilitating learning exchanges. The exchanges provide a platform for a community who may soon be impacted by a mine to meet with another community already affected by mining. This way, they are able to hear a first-hand account of the impacts, share their knowledge and experiences and discuss their legal options.

CALS’ role here is to facilitate and structure these exchanges and offer legal advice. We provide a ‘know your rights’ component which acts as a launch pad for the exchanges. Communities are able to empower and teach each other about environmental impacts. Getting across how mining affects a community is more meaningful coming from people who have been impacted by it.

CALS has so far hosted two community learning exchanges in Limpopo. Not only did communities share their experiences, they also organised a site visit of land near a mine. Seeing what un-rehabilitated land looks like, and what a degraded environment looks like, carried a lot of weight with the communities not yet affected by mining. An important measure of the success for this initiative is that communities have since begun to convene without our assistance.