The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
LACK of mentorship and coaching has been identified as a barrier to attainment of gender equality in the mining sector where women have remained under-represented affecting their growth and production in general.
Women make up 11 to 15 percent of the estimated 50 000 small-scale miners in Zimbabwe.
a research paper, Young Miners Foundation co-patron responsible for Young Women Affairs, Mrs Anna Mupawaenda said there was a need for mentorship and coaching of small-scale women miners from a women leadership perspective.
“Women miners are disadvantaged, yet comprise 11 to 15 percent of the estimated 50 000 small-scale miners in Zimbabwe.
Mining in Zimbabwe has largely been a men’s affair with women slowly making inroads in the sector.
“Recent studies show that more must be done to pave the way for gender equality in the sector.
While the current topic of mentorship and coaching from a women leadership perspective is a very strategic and progressive move showing gender equality concerns and consciousness, it needs to be reflected to promote mining opportunities for both male and female youths at all levels of the mining industry,” said Mrs Mupawaenda.
She said research has shown that mentoring women helps overcome most of the challenges in the workplace.
Mrs Mupawaenda said working women owned over 10 million businesses and made up almost 47 percent of the workforce.
She added: “It is important to empower and encourage women as they often face unique challenges without the necessary tools to overcome them.
A great way to possess these tools is by participating in mentoring and coaching programmes.
Mentors and coaches, whether they are men or women, guide their mentees or colleagues they are coaching, through struggles by sharing their knowledge and personal experience.”
Mrs Mupawaenda said while some young women in mining occupy high ranking positions in the structures, occupying a corporate position was not good enough as it was vital to be effective as well.
She said since women have generally been known to be new in some of these top positions, it was important for them to get assistance while working through mentorship and coaching.
“I hear a lot of barriers and beliefs in the mining sector especially relating to women, that can be discouraging and act as a barrier to their participation in both actual mining and in occupying corporate positions.
“These need to be dealt with by someone who went through a gender training course and understands concepts like gender discrimination, gender blind, gender bias, engendering, and the whole gender discourse,” she added.
Mrs Mupawaenda said women were under-represented at all levels within mining companies and organisations (except women’s only mining companies and organisations), yet opportunities remained for the industry to boost female recruitment, retention and advancement.
She said the tools of coaching and mentoring could be used successfully to build the corporate side from a gender perspective, to increase women corporates in mining organisations where there are less women than men.
Mrs Mupawaenda said: “While both (coaching and mentoring) can be taken as standard practices for polishing up both sexes to increase and enhance effectiveness, efficiency and productivity in the organisation at national and provincial levels, women’s integrational role is key in mining.”
She said coaching and mentoring were being increasingly used for professional development, to indicate a positive change in individuals, and to encourage the transfer of knowledge from coach/mentor to an individual.
