Gold Fields Ghana Limited (Damang Mine), a gold mining company in the Western Region, has so far invested GH¢2.27 million in scholarships which represents about 40 percent of its total investment in sustainable development activities in its host communities.
About 600 students in nine mining communities have benefitted from the Goldfield Scholarship which was established in 2002.
The scholarship scheme, instituted by Gold Fields Ghana Foundation which started with 15 students, is aimed at developing the human resources of the stakeholder communities, as well as improving access to quality education in the area.
The Gold Fields Ghana Foundation provides classroom blocks, libraries, furniture, teacher’s motivational programme, among others.
This year, the projects approved by trustees of the Foundation under the education sector includes construction of early childhood development center at Huni Valley, teacher’s salary support, continuing support for existing scholarship beneficiaries, as well as 2016/2017 scholarship awards.
Charles Kofi Nti, Acting General Manager of Gold Fields Ghana Limited (Damang Mine), who revealed this, explained that four medical doctors had been produced under the scholarship scheme.
It has also produced nurses, teachers, accountants and other professionals.
“Ten tertiary scholarship graduates, who pursued mining and engineering related programmes, are presently employed at the Damang Mine – several others are excelling in our neighbouring mining companies,” he added.
He indicated that the scholarship programme was deliberately skewed to give priority to mining and engineering programmes.
2016/2017 Scholarship Awards
He disclosed that this year, about 141 students from the nine communities in the mine operational areas applied for scholarship and bursary in 2016/2017 academic year.
“Based on the academic results of the candidates, 100 of them were shortlisted for an interview process by a community based committee. Out the number shortlisted, 75 have been chosen for this academic year to pursue secondary and tertiary education across the country,” Mr Nti added.
He revealed that out of the 75 being awarded with scholarship, 28 are pursuing various programmes at the tertiary level while the remaining 47 are in Senior High School across country.
He urged parents from the host communities to encourage their wards to pursue science, engineering and other technical programmes so as to take advantage of the numerous opportunities.
“Our communities must move away from agitating for unskilled jobs on the mine to a point where they will be taking up senior management positions in the industry at large,” he indicated.
Abdel Razak Yakubu, Community Affairs and Public Relations, also revealed that the full scholarship for Senior High School students was worth GH¢1,600 while bursary award for the same level was GH¢800 for the academic year.
“For the 2016/2017 academic year, the beneficiaries have already received cheques for the payment of all fees,” he added.
He continued “the foundation programme includes feedback process where the managers of the foundation receive reports from the various schools on the academic as well as disciplinary performance of the beneficiaries.”
“We wish to encourage this year’s winners to keep up the good academic performance and remain disciplined at school at all times,” he disclosed.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Tarkwa