"That is it," he says finally, "that is it."
The nearby Ajenua Bepo Forest reserve near Akyem supports a rich ecosystem. The tall trees are impressive as they reach up to the sky. Around them is a warm climate, with ample rain, and rich soils. The farmers near the forest take advantage of it to grow plantains, cocoa, kola nuts, and vegetables. It is not an easy life. Everyone works hard. The more successful farmers may not be wealthy in western terms, but they do not see themselves as poor. They are proud of what they do.
The farmers in Akyem say it is not as tranquil as it used to be. The American company Newmont Mining has bought a concession to explore for gold in this area, and is negotiating with the villagers to get the land they farm, compensate them for their crops, and relocate them to another place to make way for a mining pit 1.5 miles long and half a mile wide.
The company even wants to mine in the forest reserve, and the government seems willing to allow it. In April 2008, 215 members of the Concerned Farmers Association in Akyem Adausina signed a petition against mining in the forest.
In 2005 there was a demonstration against the mining proposal, and one person was shot and killed. Oxfam America's partner WACAM came to investigate the killing, and called for an investigation into the death.
Samuel Fosuhene, 65, a village councilor at that time, became wary of the prospect of mining in the town. He resigned from the council and started supporting WACAM's efforts to organize people in the village to learn about and represent their rights in negotiations with Newmont.
Fosuhene and Kwabena say there are three main issues in Akyem:
Fosuhene's main concern is responsible stewardship of the land. "Land is bequeathed from generation to generation," he says. "So if by allowing surface mining we will deprive...the generation yet unborn, then you have to be very careful."
But land management is difficult. "In our part of the world, no individual owns land," says Hannah Owusu-Koranteng of WACAM. "Even the chiefs, they do not own the land, they keep it in trust for the future of the community and its needs."
This system is at odds with the government's right to all mineral rights. It can lease the land to anyone for mining in the name of development, Owusu-Koranteng says.
The 2006 Minerals and Mining Act requires people be compensated for loss of land allocated to them by the chief, and sharecroppers need to be compensated for the crops they are growing on the land. At this point, WACAM says the company is offering eight US dollars for a cocoa tree, even though the trees produce $20 of cocoa a year for 40 years at least.
Kwabena and his siblings are concerned about losing their family home, a sprawling, 12-room concrete house that was the center of the community when his father was the chief.
In front lies the pacification stone, where errant community members confessing disrespect to authority would show remorse by slaughtering livestock. Inside the bright red walls are a series of rooms, the drums the chief would use to summon the community for meetings, the ceremonial stool and dais on which the chief sat to hold court, and the palanquin used to transport him on special occasions. Kwabena shows visitors the home, his arms outstretched as he moves through the rooms and courtyards, describing the activities of the royal household.
"This is a palace," he says next to the dais where his father dispensed wisdom to the village. "Even though it is such an old building, we are comfortable in it."
With such a nice house, with such a rich history, Kwabena and his 21 brothers and sisters, and all their children are concerned about being relocated to smaller quarters. "My father used to occupy a 16-foot by 14-foot room," Kwabena says, gesturing off to the other end of the courtyard. "You can't remove us and put us in a 9-foot by 9-foot room. That is uncomfortable and I seriously object to it."
Standing behind their house, Kwabena raises an even greater concern: "All the great chiefs who have reigned in this village are buried here," Kwabena says quietly standing under the tree planted for his father. "We can't look on and allow them to dump [mine] waste on them. It is a sacred place."
"That is it," Kwabena says, this time with conviction. "That is it."
]]>Serwaah, 65, and her husband, Kofi Agyei, 77, own two cocoa farms and three homes. Each farm produces enough food to sell at markets in Kumasi and Accra.
And the profits are enough to feed the entire family. So, when Newmont Mining Corporation talks about expanding the Ahafo Gold Mine in nearby Kenyase into Mehame—claiming that the one-time fee for their land will improve their quality of life and bring development to their community—Serwaah reacts with suspicion.
Having visited nearby Kenyase, where her sister-in-law once lived, she says she's witnessed firsthand what "development" can mean to a mining company.
"I get sick when I hear about the project. My heart races," she says. "I was so sad to see places that had been cocoa farms turned into rocks and pits. The farmers have no food because their land has been taken over. They use money for everything and can't live off the land anymore."
That's a stark difference from Serwaah's life right now. While still very poor by Western standards, she says she is wealthy in other ways. "The land is everything to us. It's worth more than gold. Even if a [cocoa] tree falls, we can eat the mushrooms that grow off of it."
Beyond the land itself, the village of Mehame is already lit up by electricity. And Serwaah's family need only walk a short distance to collect free, potable water. Many families, relocated from Kenyase and the surrounding villages, live in structures smaller than their old homes, and many are not connected to electricity lines. In Ntotroso, a resettled community filled with former residents of Kenyase, residents must now pay for their household water, and report taking turns with family members just to bathe.
"Newmont told us a lot of good stories. But we've seen that they've really disappointed us," says Kojo Zica, 28, a resident of the Ntotroso resettlement. "Since we came to this settlement, most of us are not working—even the youth. Even the water we have to pay for. It is difficult to feed our families."
For these reasons, people in Serwaah's community have been attending workshops by WACAM, a local organization supported by Oxfam. WACAM teaches the cocoa farmers to understand their rights under national and international law. In Serwaah's case, these rights include saying "no" to mining if she so chooses.
No amount of compensation from Newmont could replace the lifestyle her family has cultivated over the years, she says. And while right now she can count on her cocoa farms yielding a harvest twice a year, whatever payment she received from Newmont would peter out over time.
"For us, development is not about having big, big things, but having your peace of mind. For us, development is about working for oneself and leaving something for the next generation," she says.
]]>The agreement between ECOWAS and Oxfam America states that the new mining code's primary objective is "to facilitate the contribution of civil society in the process of forming a common mining policy that is favorable to the poor, respectful of the protection principles of the environment and of human rights, and that renders the government and the mining companies responsible through good governance practices."
"In its current form, mining activity has not made the lives of West Africans significantly better," said Mamadou Bitèye, Regional Director for Oxfam America in West Africa. "Even though gold mining has surpassed cotton and cocoa farming, Mali and Ghana still rank 173 and 135 respectively out of 177 countries, according to the UNDP Human Development Index," he said after signing the agreement with ECOWAS in Nigeria.
The regional mining project encompasses three specific objectives for the new code:
The creation of the ECOWAS mining code is part of Oxfam America's program in West Africa to promote citizen participation in decisions related to oil, gas, and mining projects, transparency of payments by international corporations to governments operating in this industry, and uniform laws and policies across the region that will forestall the "race to the bottom" as companies compete for foreign investment by compromising their social and environmental standards.
Oxfam America will oversee the participation of civil society representatives in the drafting of the new mining code. Mamadou Bitèye, and Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the President of ECOWAS, both expressed their satisfaction in signing the agreement at ECOWAS headquarters.
"We appreciate the political will of ECOWAS in working to harmonize mining policies," said Bitèye "A regional mining code will allow joint governance and better use of foreign direct investment by avoiding the current climate of competition among member countries."
]]>In 2002, Bogoso Gold Mines, a subsidiary of Golden Star Resources, acquired the mine concession and started to aggressively expand the mine pit towards the town. Use of explosives in the mine pit damaged homes in the Krutown neighborhood, and repairs effected by the company were not adequate, according to homeowners. In the neighboring village of Dumase there have been two cyanide spills in the Aprepre River in 2004 and 2006.
"In 2004 we could see the surface mine approaching the town, so we complained to the government but no one came to our aid," said Dominic Nyame, a burly 43-year-old former miner turned community organizer with the Concerned Citizens Association of Prestea. Community members said the encroaching mine pits brought blasting too close to nearby neighborhoods and houses were being damaged. "In 2005 we demonstrated against the company, and the military came to town and shot seven people—fortunately no one died." There has never been an independent investigation of this incident.
The communities of Prestea, as well as Himan, and Dumase that neighbor the Bogoso/Prestea mine, are requesting a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the first phase of the Bogoso/Prestea project and for the company to respect their right to free, prior, and informed consent regarding the planned Prestea Southern Project.
The community of Dumase is also seeking damages in court from the 2004 and 2006 cyanide spills, and has formally requested that Golden Star Resources commission independent health investigations, but the company has not acted on this either.
Community members attended training sessions with Oxfam America's partner WACAM in 2005 to learn about their human rights, and how to teach others about their right to live in a safe environment and be consulted about the effects of the expanding mining operation. Community members went to Accra and met with reporters and got their grievances into the media, after which Bogoso Gold said they would reduce their blasting activity and form a joint committee to oversee future blasting.
But the issue of pit expansion is still a problem for people living in and near Prestea who fear being involuntarily relocated, or living too close to mine pits and blasting. The proposed pit expansion would also be within several hundred meters of a school, so many parents in this area are concerned about the safety of their children. In two prior incidents in 2006 security forces have moved people off of mine property by force, and the Concerned Citizens Association has had to use some of the training they received from WACAM to resolve these conflicts peacefully. "With WACAM we can calm the waters," Nyame said.
Bogoso Gold is currently suspending all mining activity and expansion while it negotiates with the citizens of Prestea, who are exerting their right to be consulted about how the mine operates, how it could possibly expand its operations into the southern part of Prestea, and the way it carries out any future blasting in the mine pits.
]]>This is where Asewe stays when she's in Goz Beida, a small town in eastern Chad whose outskirts are now flooded with about 52,000 people forced from their villages by factional fighting. But when it's safe, her home is a tent at Kerfi, one of several sites in the area that the displaced Chadians have temporarily settled.
"That's what my beneficiaries are using," says Asewe about her tent. "It's good to use what my beneficiaries are using."
It's there, at Kerfi, that Asewe likes to be best—in the midst of the people she has come to help. A registered nurse and trained midwife, she is a public health promoter for Oxfam, leading a team of three staffers and a committee of 15. Her job is to work closely with families, showing them how to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases. A musical voice, a warm smile, and an untempered passion are her tools.
Asewe came to this region of Chad in mid-July 2007—at the height of the rainy season—her second posting to the country in a long humanitarian career that has carried her around the world from the tsunami-ravaged coast of Indonesia to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and back to Chad. It was raining that first time here, too, back in 2004 when refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan were streaming across the border, many of them having walked for days to reach safety.
She was assigned to Bredjing, a camp that now has a population of close to 30,000 people. But back then, it was just beginning to grow, a chaotic sprawl of families, ragged and tired, desperate for food, water, and shelter.
"It was a very difficult situation. Every morning we would come and we would find at least 100 people, towards the wadi, just squatting around," recalls Asewe. "Some would come with small plastic sheets. Some would have traditional mats, but some would have literally nothing. It would be raining the whole night. The children would have literally nothing on top of their heads."
Many of them didn't survive.
"They put in their own graveyard. Every morning organizations like Doctors Without Borders had outreach people just to count how many graves. Yes. So it was very very painful when they first came."
For nine months, Asewe worked with Oxfam, and alongside other organizations, to bring some order to the camp.
"I left happy, though," she says, "because I had seen the beginning and I saw all the changes—everybody putting in a lot of effort." Besides getting water and sanitation services in place, aid groups had even managed to set up activities for children. And the overcrowding was relieved a bit when some of the refugees moved to a new camp—one that was planned for them in advance, so water systems and latrines were already in place.
For the first few weeks of her posting to Kerfi, about 45 kilometers south of Goz Beida, Asewe couldn't even get there. The heavy seasonal rain had swollen the seasonal river, or wadi, swamping parts of the village, and making it impossible for trucks to cross. The short drive from Goz Beida to Kerfi took six or seven hours through the rain, as drivers struggled to negotiate the mud and gushing streams.
Doctors Without Borders was the only aid organization working in Kerfi at the time, said Asewe and it had managed to get there before the rains began to fall. It had parked two of its trucks on the far side of the wadi rushing by the village.
Eventually, workers built a small raft from old drums. An Oxfam driver would deliver Asew to the wadi's edge, and she would float across, her feet dangling in the water, to catch a ride on the other side in a Doctors Without Borders truck.
"We did that until September," Asewe said. "We were not able to get a driver across until October so that delayed all the possibilities."
But once she was able to set foot in Kerfi, Asewe wasted no time in laying the groundwork for her program.
In crowded situations, where there is little room for people and their animals to live as they are accustomed, the spread of waterborne diseases poses a major threat. In December Kerfi was home home to more than 3,000 displaced people—on top of the 4,200 who were already living there.
"The major issue was there was a lot of wadi water, but no clean water," said Asewe, noting that Doctors Without Borders was treating numerous cases of diarrhea. "It was pathetic. The host community, having been completely surrounded, also lost the area they would use for extra space. Their main complaint was they hardly had any place to get their animals to graze." Nor did they have any place left to use as a bathroom.
"Hence the demand for latrines and water," says Asewe.
In convincing people to adopt new ways of doing things, it's important to make them part of the process—so they own it, too. But first, Asewe has to find out what they know, and in this case, it quickly became clear that people were not making the link between the dirty wadi water they were relying on the diarrhea they were suffering from.
"That gives you a key basis where to start," says Asewe.
She organized a development committee of nine women and eight men from Kerfi who would eventually help her with the big task of public education. After some training, together they settled on three main messages they needed to convey to the community.
The messages may sound simple to western ears, but for the residents and displaced people of Kerfi, they could mean the difference between life and death.
Here is what the health promotion committee and Asewe want the people of Kerfi to do:
Part of Asewe's public education program also includes granting families ownership of community latrines—along with cleaning and maintenance duties. About 20 people share each latrine. When a cluster of three or four have been built for people who are under the care of one chief, Asewe arranges for a handover ceremony, with plans made for who's going to keep the latrines clean and how they'll close them down when they're full. And with each latrine, Oxfam provides a latrine kit—a brush and bucket for cleaning.
Some people get the messages very quickly; others are slower to change.
"The best people to target are the children," says Asewe. They learn quickly and adapt readily. "For adults, they may be able to understand, but changing habits may not be so easy."
But whatever the frustrations may be—wadis overflowing with water, insecurity that keeps her tied to Goz Beida, the slow pace of people's adaptation—Asewe says none of that is enough to snuff out the enthusiasm she has for this work.
"I'm still so happy to be the public health promoter who goes to that little house and finds the child and plays around with them and see how you could improve their little lives," says Asewe. "That makes me more happy. It's quite an opportunity and a blessing."
]]>In addition to details about Oxfam's work on climate change, you will also find deeper perspective on our ongoing work in Ghana focused on mining, an update on life in Darfur as the crisis continues with no end yet in sight, and a success story about a multicultural approach to fighting poverty in the mountains of Peru.
]]>"Life is water," says Oxfam's Brahim Abdel-Madjid. "Without water there is no life at all—enough water, sufficient water, good quality water."
Here at Koloma, that is what Oxfam is helping to supply to some of the 180,000 Chadians chased from their homes by recent waves of violence between rebel forces and government troops. About 7,400 displaced people have settled at Koloma, one of seven sites in and around Goz Beida in which Oxfam is now providing emergency services for a total of 52,000 people.
And for some, the help aid groups have offered, coupled with the advantages of being near a town like Goz Beida with its new hospital, mosque, and market, hold enough promise for a better life that home no longer beckons them.
"Some will not go back—even with security," says Abdel-Madjid, who is the team leader for Oxfam's public health education programs in the Goz Beida area. "Most of the people living in the temporary sites had never traveled to Goz Beida to see that there's a big market. You can trade. You can start a new life."
Clean water is certainly one of the lures—a benefit that has helped to soften the hardships many have experienced as their family members have been killed, their homes ruined, their villages abandoned.
In the mottled light inside a mat hut at Koloma, a crowd of women—and a baby or two—has gathered. These are the sushies—the female leaders of their communities. Sitting on the ground, folded in their colorful wraps, they talk about their lives since fleeing their villages and coming to this sandy sprawl of makeshift shelters. Abdel-Madjid translates.
Food is in short supply, they say. And they have no land to farm. To earn money to buy extra food, they gather wood in the bush to sell in the local market.
Many of them have lost everything in the conflict. Fatouma Sosal tells of the four huts that once belonged to her family in Tiero. All of them were burned down. She talks about the millet she used to grow in her fields and her lost self-sufficiency.
Kadjidja Mahamat says the days here at Koloma can be long, filled only with the chores of trying to keep her temporary household in order: cooking food in the morning—if there is food—washing her children's clothes, patching her hut.
But at least there is water—clean and ample—and for that the women are happy.
In their villages, says Abdel-Madjid, families used to drink from the same source in which they bathed and also shared with their animals, which left their droppings nearby. People were sometimes sick and their children would have "blajose," or bloody urine. But with clean water supplied from a large Oxfam storage tank erected at the edge of their settlement—and a new understanding of waterborne diseases and the importance of good hygiene—problems like diarrhea have disappeared.
"A lot of these people are coming from huts in the middle of the desert. They get to Goz Beida and suddenly they get clean water, schools, health care," says Sarah McHattie, an Oxfam program manager. "I don't think we'll see a big return."
The question of when—and if—displaced people will return to their villages is a complex one, says Poul Brandrup, Oxfam's country program manager in Chad. There are many factors people weigh in making that decision.
"They need to be convinced that they will be able to re-establish sustainable livelihoods," says Brandrup. "Safety is important. So are primary health services and water. And we are increasingly hearing their strong wish for their children to be able to attend school."
One of the realities is that the temporary settlements in which people can now access those essential services are, in fact, "artificial," says Brandrup. They offer limited possibilities for people to establish and maintain themselves over the long-term. For instance, without Oxfam?s assistance, communities could not sustain the kind of water systems—with deep boreholes and expensive diesel-powered pumps—on which they now rely.
"The displaced understand that it will not be possible for all to stay in the current sites," Brandrup adds. "At the same time, many villages have been destroyed and land taken over by others so return in those cases is no longer an option."
Economic and social development for rural villages may play a key role in some people's willingness to return.
"It is not possible to drill thousands of boreholes to replace the existing water systems," says Brandrup. "But people can learn to develop traditional open wells better and to ensure that water is not contaminated by animals or unsafe practices. This is, in most cases, the way to go when and if the displaced people can return to their villages."
Khadidja Saleh has already made up her mind about that—at least for the moment. She doesn't intend to leave Gassire, a settlement for 16,300 displaced people on the other side of Goz Beida.
Not far from the steady thump of an Oxfam generator pumping water for this temporary community, Saleh welcomes visitors into her home. A collection of three huts for her extended family, Saleh's improvised compound is like many crowded onto this dusty patch of earth, cobbled together from branches, plastic sheets, thatch, and grass matting.
The mother of six children, Saleh, her husband, and their family made it here safely after a three-day walk from their village of Fagatar—a place she does not want to go back to.
"Many, many people have been killed and no one took time to bury them," she says through an interpreter. "There will not be peace there."
Instead, she says, she would like to stay here and possibly farm a little plot where she can grow vegetables such as ochra—if she can get some land. It feels safe here, she added. And the water is close by and clean.
In Fagatar, Saleh spent about two hours each day fetching water for her family, lugging it home on the back of a donkey. Here, water taps are a short distance from her home. She and her children visit them four or five times a day, filling a 20-liter jug each time.
Even though there is not enough food for her family to eat here yet, Saleh is confident that the international aid groups that have streamed into the region to help will do just that—make sure that she, and the tens of thousands of other displaced villagers, will have at least the basics for survival.
"Here, the place is safe, so one day the food can come," she says.
But the challenges, including insecurity and lawlessness, that confront aid groups in this poor and remote region are enormous—and the needs of people seemingly without end.
As Saleh's visitors bounced in their truck away from Gassire, they passed a thin and tired-looking woman slapping the rump of donkey, urging it onward with its heavy load of a child and a battered pair of plastic water jugs. From the bottom of one, a steady drip of water caught the light. It drizzled from a rag plugging a hole—an afternoon's labor draining into the dust.
]]>When the government conceded the minerals under his farm to an international mining company in 1991, 37-year-old Ayensu and his wife and four children were out. Worse, he later discovered that the payment he was to receive for his land had been arbitrarily cut by two-thirds. "I was not happy, and I cried," Ayensu said later. "It was because of this farm that we could eat...now my children are out of school. I can't go to my farm ever again."
By law, the mine run by AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. must compensate farmers for their lands and for future lost income from their crops. The company reviewed the crops on each farm and assigned a value. After some farmers were paid, others found their offers suddenly rescinded, replaced with ones based on the total acreage of their farms.
"They should have negotiated this with us," said Emilia Amoateng, 30, chair of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie. "But some of the elders who were close to the company supported it....Those who should come to our aid—our district assembly and members of parliament—have been bought off and corrupted," she said.
It's a common story, one repeated in many other mining countries. Most farmers have no one to help them hold the company or their elected representatives accountable, to respect their property rights, to compensate them fairly, and to protect the environment. And in so many out-of-the way villages we have never heard of, farmers shrug, take what's offered, hope for a job they will never get at the mine, and do the best they can.
But in Teberebie and scores of other villages in Ghana, things are working out slightly differently. The farmers are shifting the balance of power by learning, understanding, and asserting their basic human rights.
The price of gold has been quite high the last few years, and recently topped $900 an ounce. Ghana is now the second largest producer of gold on the continent behind South Africa. In its 50th year of independence, Ghana is working hard to reduce poverty for its 10 million citizens.
But most of the wealth mining generates goes right back out to foreign companies operating the mines. A 2005 UN report estimated that just five percent of the $894 million from mines in 2003 was captured in Ghana, a mere $46 million in Ghana's $11 billion economy. "Our country is poor because our resources are under the control of those with all the money," says Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, executive director of Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM), an organization that helps people protect the environment and defend their human rights. "Ninety-five percent of the mining revenues go out of the country, and only five percent stays—along with 100 percent of the problems."
The problems go beyond farmers losing their land. The BBC reported in 2006 that at least 12 people have been shot in violent confrontations with mine security and police forces. There have also been numerous cases of cyanide spills near rivers and streams needed for drinking and irrigation in villages near mines. Owusu-Koranteng said that the five percent retained in Ghana from mining can't come close to redressing all these problems.
Oxfam America is funding the work of WACAM, Owusu-Koranteng's organization. WACAM teaches villagers about the constitution of Ghana and their rights under the 2006 Minerals and Mining Act. Armed with this information, farmers can then assert their rights to fair compensation for their lands and hold the companies responsible for damage to the environment.
The approach has proven effective in several towns. In Prestea, an industrialized mining town since the 1920s, 62-year-old Godfried Ofori said that the people of Prestea were being rocked by explosions in mining pits run by Bogoso Gold, a local subsidiary of Golden Star Resources of Denver. The blasts have cracked the cement houses in town, and waste dumps have clogged water springs in the area with earth and rocks dug out of the pits. And there is a threat of expansion: the mine wants to move the entire southern part of the town.
"They were using money to buy the support of citizens," Ofori said. "We went house to house to tell people about their human rights—and about the company's plan to blast just 200 or 300 meters from their houses and schools...so now they understand, they know they have human rights, and they no longer take money from the mine company and put their children at risk."
Golden Star stopped blasting and all mining temporarily while it negotiates to expand the mine.
Learning about basic rights that you never knew you had changes your perspective. When you learn how to negotiate with a mining company, speak to reporters, or show those in authority that they can't take advantage of you and get away with it, you realize that you have power. You deserve respect. It is this change in perspective that has helped the people of Prestea bring mining to a halt while they negotiate their future.
"Most people don't have money," said Ofori, "but they have their spirit."
You can see this spirit in the eyes of the farmers in Teberebie, where about 15 of them are disputing the compensation offered by AngloGold Ashanti. Their Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie staged a march to the nearby mining center of Tarkwa, where they were interviewed by the media. This brought a lot of visibility to their case, as well as a proposal to negotiate from AngloGold. Unfortunately, it did not lead to an agreement, but with the help of WACAM and the legal aid organization, Center for Public Interest Law (CEPIL), both funded by Oxfam America, the claim is now in the courts.
Nana Molobah Nyamiketh, chief of the village of Abekoase, has a round, friendly face but a serious nature. And it was this serious side that went into action the morning of October 16, 2001, when villagers came to him with bad news: Their main source of drinking water, the Asuman River, was full of dead fish, and those who had come in contact with the water had developed skin problems. It was their worst fear: a cyanide spill. "We informed WACAM, as they had been teaching us how to negotiate with the company and understand our rights...and we got some journalists to cover the news of the cyanide spill."
The 400 villagers of Abekoase, half of whom had already been displaced by the Gold Fields mine, took the company to court in March of 2002. By the end of 2003, Abekoase and Gold Fields had reached a settlement out of court that included a community center building and a development fund of roughly $27,000 being used to build a new school and teachers' quarters. A palm oil processing center is also still under construction.
"The settlement was pretty good," Chief Nyamiketh said, crediting WACAM and CEPIL for their advice on the case. "If it had not been for WACAM, we would not have gotten any help, because it seems the government institutions are on the side of the mine companies."
Chief Nyamiketh said that they are even more pleased with the changed relationship with Gold Fields. "People are now better equipped to negotiate with the company," Chief Nyamiketh said, adding that the company now handles them differently also. "They were surprised we took them to court; they thought they would just ride over us. But we scared them...Now they know that this village took them to the high court, so when something happens, they react quickly because people here know their rights."
Chief Nyamiketh looked out the window of his house, into the daily afternoon downpour of a May afternoon, where the rain was smashing down into the red earth and thunder boomed in the distance. "It is a sign of respect," he said.
]]>Farmers in this area are typically informed that the government has conceded their land to the mine and that there is nothing they can do about it. Joanna knew better. "I know my rights, and I knew the law would take its course," she said.
Manu had attended a training session with Oxfam America's partner WACAM, where she learned that farmers can only be removed from their land if they have been compensated for it. This helped her make a strong argument. "I told the court that I was there before the company came and that it had not compensated me. So the company has no right to push me off this land."
"And I am still farming there," Manu said, smiling just a little. "I learned this in my training, and it is thanks to this new knowledge that I could do this."
WACAM's training not only helped Manu defend her own rights and farmland, but also helped her become one of the key organizers in her community, Dumasi, a small collection of mud and concrete houses piled on the side of a hill on the road between two larger mining towns, Prestea and Tarkwa. Farmers line the road selling tomatoes and yams as trucks and cars blast past in the dust and heat. The forest looms over Dumasi; dark green surrounds the hardwood trees and small fields that farmers hack out of the dense brush.
Open-pit gold mining has had serious negative effects ranging from housing damage caused by the explosives used to blast apart the pit to reveal ore, just over 300 yards from the village, to pollution of the local drinking water source, the Aprepre River, in 2004 and 2006. Again, training from WACAM has helped Manu and her neighbors push the company to respect their rights and its obligations.
After the mine spilled cyanide into the stream in 2004, Manu and her father immediately collected water samples and dead fish, and sent them to WACAM and Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "WACAM taught us that cyanide is extremely poisonous, but that exposure to the sun reduces its toxicity," Manu explained. "Usually when we complain to the EPA they take 10 days to come here, so that is why we had to get the samples right away." WACAM helped secure medical care for sick villagers and convened a press conference so the villagers could pressure the company to clean up the mess and compensate people affected by the poison. WACAM and another legal aid organization funded by Oxfam America, CEPIL, helped the citizens of Dumasi take the company to court, and they are awaiting a decision.
Efforts like this have helped the people of Dumasi force the company to halt the blasting that hurled rocks into their houses and cracked their foundations. For now the mining has stopped while the company tries to relocate the village—but first it has to negotiate a deal with a group of citizens who will no longer allow the government and mining company to take advantage of them.
The training WACAM provided for the people of Dumasi has helped them defend their rights, but it is also changing the way they think about themselves and others. Manu realized that she can be a leader, someone who can make a difference in her village and the world. "After this training, I can see how important education is, so I am enrolled in school," she said. "I want to be a political leader, maybe a member of parliament."
Manu's motivations and sense of responsibility go well beyond her village. "I see fellow human beings as I see myself, and if they can't defend their rights, then I have to help them," she said. "I am saving humanity."
]]>The villagers, led Nana (chief) Kofi Karikari, successfully claimed in their civil case that Ghana Australia Goldfields, Ltd. unlawfully forced them out of their village and destroyed their buildings. The company, which was later acquired by the AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem mine, claimed that the village did not exist at the time the mine was established, and the structures were built later in a bid to extract compensation from the company.
"The Nkwantakrom community was able to prove that the village had been on the map of Ghana long before the establishment of Ghana Australia Goldfields in the early '90s," said Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, executive director of WACAM, the environmental and human rights organization that assisted Nkwantakrom in its case. "The community helped the first surveyor of the mine in locating important landmarks such as rivers when the company engaged in reconnaissance surveys. And Nana Kofi Karikari proved that he was made the chief of the community in 1968."
Nana Karikari and the villagers were represented in the high court by the legal aid organization Center for Public Interest Law (known as CEPIL), which with WACAM assists communities affected by mining. Both are partners of Oxfam America.
"Now through a court of competent jurisdiction, the guilty one has been found," Chief Karikari said after the court delivered the verdict. "Today, through WACAM and CEPIL, we have realized we have the right to live."
In addition to ordering the company to pay 4,000 Ghana cedis (US$3,800), the decision by Justice Francis K. Opoku also awarded:
Although AngloGold Ashanti has expressed its intention to appeal the decision of the high court, Owuso-Koranteng of WACAM said that the villagers of Nkwantakrom were pleased with the result of their 10-year legal case, and that the decision has built their confidence and the confidence of other communities engaged in legal cases against mining companies in Ghana.
]]>Not far from where the Nyantang Dundula River slips by the village of Dasilami in Gambia, there rises a stand of giant baobab trees. Branches bristle from the tops of their stout trunks and beneath the canopy, pools of shade cool the air and ground. The houses of one of the largest clans in Dasilami once stood here in the stillness of this glade. But now, they cluster near a sun-scorched road, their owners having traded the comforts of the baobabs for the convenience of being close to a major transportation route.
Gambians have a saying about their baobab trees: "If you want to lean, make sure you lean on something strong to avoid being pushed down." It's a bit of wisdom that informs their approach to hard times, too, even as they leave the baobabs behind. What it means is that with some support, people can help themselves overcome hardships.
That's the idea behind a $65,000 grant Oxfam America has provided to help people in 51 villages—including Dasilami—in Gambia's North Bank Division. Here, food shortages are a constant threat as people struggle to manage the delicate balance between their needs and what the environment can provide. Will there be enough rain to allow crops to grow? Will locusts devour whatever villagers manage to coax from their fields?
A simple solution promoted by Oxfam's local partner, Agency for the Development of Women and Children, or ADWAC, takes the edge off those questions: If villagers had a way to save some of their food and seeds at the end of each harvest, they could have a reserve to fall back on during times of shortage. The trick was to get started.
ADWAC's plan called for building and stocking four cereal "banks"—tidy white structures the size of small houses which can hold up to 30 metric tons of cereals—located at strategic points around the communities. Villagers then formed committees to manage the stored supplies. Those who borrow from the storehouse during a food shortage are obliged to repay the loan and tack on a little extra, too, so that the project can grow.
Now, if drought should shrivel their crops or pests consume them, villagers can turn to that bank of grain, avoiding the need to eke what they can—as the woodcutters in Janack do—from an overstrained environment. The bank will help them weather tough times.
Inside the Dasilami storehouse one recent day, the sweetness of harvested grains fills the hot dry air. Heavy sacks—they weigh just under 200 pounds—stuffed with corn and millet are stacked nearly to the ceiling. Outside, in the shade of a tree laden with mangoes, Nyima Filly Fofana, a mother of nine children and an organizer for one of the cereal bank management committees, talks about what it was like one year recently when both locusts and drought hit the area.
"We experienced a very bitter time," she says. "The family was hungry." In times of food shortages, Fofana's family manages by selling the salt she harvests from mud flats near her home and by eating whatever vegetables they can grow in their garden. But if such trouble should strike again, this time Dasilami has the seeds of a solution—one that can now spread to other villages, too.
"Our worries will be temporarily solved," says Fofana, clapping her hands at the thought of the white building gleaming there in the sun, stocked with grain. "We'll have food. Therefore our families will not cry. Our stomachs will no longer go empty."
]]>In a dusty yard under the shade of a mango tree, Abdulie Camara holds out his hands for a visitor to feel. His palms are as tough as leather. He has been cutting trees—countless numbers of them—to sell their wood for cash so he can help feed some of the dozens of people with whom he now shares his mudbrick house.
His neighbors in the Gambian village of Janack are chopping down the forest, too, in an effort to provide not only for their families, but for the refugees who have settled among them. They are from the Casamance region of Senegal.
A push to gain independence for the region, which has pitted the separatist group known as the Movement of Democratic Forces of the Casamance against the government of Senegal, has fueled more than 20 years of fighting. The violence has forced at least 60,000 people from their homes. An estimated 7,000 of them have streamed across the border to seek safety on Gambian soil, heightening the pressure on an already strained land.
As Camara, and residents of other border villages, have struggled with the crush of that refugee flow, Oxfam America and its local partners have been providing emergency assistance designed to help villagers cope. For them—and the land around them—the consequences of the Casamance conflict have been severe.
The tree-cutting deeply worries some environmentalists.
"In 10 to 20 years, all of Gambia will be a desert," said Marcel Badji, marveling at the wood, split and piled, in the yards around Janack. "People are cutting trees for survival. Huge trees are going down."
Badji is the director of St. Joseph's Family Farms center, a local Gambian organization and Oxfam America partner. His words give voice to a grave reality: Poverty is putting intense pressure on the environment here.
Camara leads a visitor into his small mudbrick house. Forty-six people sleep here, sharing beds and straw mats unfurled on the dirt floor. Many of the refugees who have sought safety in Gambia are related to their hosts. Cousins and nephews are among the people Camara is sheltering.
"It's very difficult to handle such a large number of people," Camara says. "Food is number one." As he speaks, a ruckus breaks out in a kitchen hut at one end of the hard-packed yard. A pair of sheep have nudged their way in and are rooting around for something to eat. Alert family members shoo them out and fasten the door.
A farmer, Camara grows millet, rice, peanuts, and corn. But because of increased pressure on the land, it has lost some of its fertility and his harvests have shrunk. The money he would have used for fertilizer to enrich the soil has been spent helping to support the Casamance refugees.
"It's part of the culture. You assist people who need your help," says Badji. "And these people are in need."
In searching for answers to these problems of poverty, Oxfam and its partners are focusing on ideas that will help people exert control over their circumstances. When villagers have the means—training, resources, know-how—to solve their own troubles, those tools become the basis for lasting solutions.
That's the hope for four bright blue hand pumps that now cap wells in some of the border villages. They are part of a $45,000 grant Oxfam provided to Concern Universal, an international partner that has been addressing the needs of refugees and their hosts.
In the village of Oupat, a short distance from Janack and a stone's throw from the Casamance line, Bakary Sonko and Gibril Sonko worked together on a recent afternoon to spin the handle on one of the pumps. After 40 seconds of cranking, they had filled a four-gallon bucket with fresh water. Bees buzz about the stream as it sputters out of the faucet. Next to the pump sits a large metal barrel hooked to a hose—key components of Oupat's brick-making enterprise. With water readily available, new mudbrick houses?homes for the refugees'are on the rise nearby.
"The pumps can be easily maintained by the communities without big fees," explains Zanira Paralta, an Oxfam humanitarian response officer. "It's a technology Concern Universal has been implementing for five or six years. We realized it could be a good way to provide water at low cost."
Inside the blue casings, the pump mechanism is simple: it looks like a bicycle wheel that spins with the help of a rope affixed with tiny washers that pull up the water. The rope, made from nylon, can be replaced easily when it breaks. To show how simple it is to reach the parts that need fixing, Ousman Jammeh, a technician for Concern Universal, untwists a plastic cap at the top of the pump and removes the plastic tubing through which the rope runs.
Nearby, another well signals the importance of Oupat's new hand pumps. This well, dug in 1983, is dry. A tangle of skinny branches covers its opening. Before Concern Universal installed the new wells and pumps, people had to trek to Nyambolo, the neighboring village, for their water.
Working with other local groups, Concern Universal has built about 150 of these wells using manually operated equipment—simpler technology means fewer breakdowns—to bore the holes. And it has experimented with a variety of materials, available locally such as wood and aluminum, in constructing parts for the pumps.
Niall O'Connor, director of Concern Universal, explains that a similar pump is used in Nicaragua and that Concern made modifications so that it could be used here.
"The whole idea is to be affordable and sustainable," he says.
]]>Having completed a training program with the environmental and human rights organization WACAM, partly funded by Oxfam America, Ayensu said he could tell what had happened: "WACAM has taught me how to identify a polluted stream," he said. Ayensu then went to alert others in Teberebie that there was a cyanide spill in the streams that supply water and fish for him and about 100 families that live along them.
Ayensu's colleague Emilia Amoateng, leader of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie, immediately started an investigation. Knowing that cyanide is used to separate gold from ore in the mining projects surrounding Teberebie, she centered her investigation on the polluted streams near the south gate of Gold Fields Ghana mining company, and behind the waste piles of AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mines. However Gold Fields has a drain from its tailings dam (a waste storage area) that runs into the stream. She also found that BARBEX Technical Services, a chemical supply company to the various mines in the area, has also constructed a drain from its warehouse into the stream. An accidental cyanide spill from either of these sources would therefore enter the streams quite easily. Recent heavy rains increased the likelihood that water overflowing from these sites would carry any spilled chemicals into the waters.
Moses Ayuba, the district program officer for Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said water tests had shown extremely high levels of acidity, but that he was unable to identify the cause of the acid in the river. He said that further testing on fish and water should help identify the source of the pollution.
Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, the director of WACAM, said that the pollution represented a serious public health problem. "Some people who mistakenly went swimming in the river had their skin peeled off," he said. "Those who drank the polluted water and ate some of the fish are having serious stomach problems. We have helped seven of them get medical attention."
Owusu-Koranteng went on to say that the mining and chemical supply companies have been reluctant to take responsibility for the pollution. "The mining companies and EPA initially tried to push the blame on 'galamsey' [small-scale mining] activities and later shifted the blame to chemical fishing." He went on to say that chemical fishing is unusual in this area, and in any case would never be done during the rainy season when the rivers are high. He also said that people living near the Barbex Technical Services had been previously warned by the company not to drink from the river, and were permitted to take tap water from the company.
Villagers in Teberebie are now calling on the EPA to help them defend their right to live in a clean environment, and are planning a demonstration to bring media attention to this incident.
]]>"This award is dedicated to the poor mining communities," said Kwarteng. "Their struggle has been recognized. I hope this will encourage people to continue the fight against irresponsible mining."
Kwarteng has served as an advisor to Oxfam America's partners in Ghana that are working to help communities affected by mining pollution and other social problems.
Kwarteng's article described the problems of acid mine drainage, which pollutes rivers and streams with acid leaching from rocks exposed in mining. He wrote about a report from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on an environmental impact assessment for the proposed mine run by the Newmont Mining Corporation of Denver.
Kwarteng gained access to the report after a petition was filed under the US' Freedom of Information Act. When the EPA report became available to the public, it revealed that the testing carried out by Newmont on the potential of acid mine drainage was inadequate. His article was published in the Daily Graphic, the newspaper with the largest circulation in Ghana.
The EPA report also noted that the amount of cyanide that would be allowed in water discharged and held in waste holding areas would be above acceptable standards. Kwarteng's article quoted the EPA report: "Cyanide will be discharged into the tailings facility at 1,000 times the aquatic life water quality standard and 100 times the drinking water standard, thereby setting up for future water quality problems."
Press articles critical of the mining industry in Ghana are unusual. Kwarteng said that access to technical data made his award-wining story particularly strong. "Most of the mining companies here have a way of controlling information, but in this case I got some primary data," he said. "These are facts that could not be disputed."
Kwarteng has also been threatened with lawsuits by mining companies when he published stories about controversial subjects. "Mr. Kwarteng has made great sacrifices to report on many critical mining community issues such as military and police brutalities in mining communities, cyanide spillages, forced evictions of mining communities, and environmental problems," said Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, director of WACAM, an environmental and human rights organization in Ghana that works in partnership with Oxfam America.
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