Zimbabwe School of Mines to venture into jewellery-making

Judith Phiri and Faith Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporters

IN a bid to diversify Bulawayo’s economy and tap into the lucrative gemstone industry, the Zimbabwe School of Mines (ZSM) is embarking on an ambitious project to expand its Gemstone and Lapidary Workshop into jewellery-making.

This strategic move is expected to significantly contribute to the city’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and position Bulawayo as a major player in the global gemstone and jewellery market. The project, which is already underway, aims to equip students and local artisans with the skills and expertise to design and manufacture high-quality jewellery pieces, leveraging Zimbabwe’s rich gemstone resources.

In April, the Mineral Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) gifted the school US$1,1 million worth of equipment for cutting and polishing gemstones as part of its corporate social responsibility. The equipment was seen as a great step in building high-quality skills for value addition and beneficiation, which is critical in driving the momentum towards the attainment of an empowered upper middle-income economy vision earlier than 2030.

The school is now working on expanding into jewellery making, with the designing of the course already complete. This emerged during a tour of the Gemstone and Lapidary Workshop by the Bulawayo Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Judith Ncube.

ZSM principal, Mr Edwin Gwaze revealed that they have already designed the course for jewellery making and they were now working on getting the necessary equipment to be able to produce the jewellery which include rings, necklaces and bracelets among other things.“In the current setup, the students that we are training are taken through an incubation programme. This programme is meant to equip these students with the skills to be able to start their own cutting and polishing factories.

This group has finished their final examination and we are now starting the incubation programme which is going to run for six months,” said Mr Gwaze. Mr Gwaze said at the end of the programme they are going to group the students into groups of three and equip them with the two key equipment that they are going to use for cutting and polishing. In an interview, after touring the facility on Friday, Minister Ncube marvelled at the innovation and empowerment of the youth.

“I appreciate what is being done here at ZSM. When I got here I quickly thought of the late Vice-President Dr Joshua Nkomo when he used to say ‘bantwana akulankwali eyaqhwandela eyinye, vuka uzenzele’ (there is no bird that can look for food for another, you have to work for yourself).

“What I am seeing here today is exactly what the old man used to say vukani lizenzele (wake up and work for yourselves). The current President is saying Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo, Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo. He is referring to exactly what is being done here,” she said. Minister Ncube said Zimbabwe has been losing millions of dollars through the smuggling of raw minerals which are being sold across the borders, with nothing coming in to benefit the country.

She said with the approach ZSM was taking to beneficiate and value-add minerals, revenue was going to be generated for the country. “This approach is going to change the whole thinking among us as the people of Zimbabwe, especially with young people. If they are given an opportunity they will certainly take charge of their lives to fulfil Vision 2030 of an upper middle income economy. If you sell raw minerals for less, the person who will do cutting and polishing benefits more.

Mineral beneficiation and value-addition are very important to be done within the country.” Minister Ncube said the innovation witnessed at the facility was going to take gemstones mining to a different level, while positively contributing to the growth of the province’s GDP and that of the country. She said first-class products will be produced once the institution expands and starts doing jewellery, a critical development in line with the devolution agenda.

“We used to have jewellery shops here in Bulawayo so let’s put our heads together, gather resources and make sure we empower young people to value- add and beneficiate raw minerals. Let’s have equipment for the institution so that when students graduate they would have gone through all the processes,” she said.  Mr Gwaze said as an institution they responded to the aspirations of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), through going into the space of value-addition and beneficiation.

“The major focus was the gemstone sector where we have come up with courses in Gemology and also Gemstone Cutting and Polishing, so the Lapidary Workshop is a perfect fit into Vision 2030 because we are now creating skills that can beneficiate our gemstones,” he said. “In the past, we all know that gemstones were being sold in rough form and as a nation, we were losing millions of dollars because we were not value-adding our stones. When you sell a rough gemstone you are losing more than 10 times what you could get if you were to value-add that stone, so I think this is a welcome development to the nation and to the region.”

Zimbabwe’s mining sector contributes significantly to the country’s economy and has a diverse gemstone sector, with a range of precious and semi-precious stones.