As Sitona, we recognise that mining communities are faced with a number of ongoing socio-economic challenges, which include unemployment, healthcare challenges like tuberculosis & HIV/AIDS, a lack of amenities like housing, hospitals and schools; and, a lack of sustainable business opportunities.

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Sitona recognises that Corporate Social Responsibility is an integral part of doing business sustainably in the current business environment, and that local business development is a vital part of being a good and responsible corporate citizen.

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While we accept these challenges, and embrace the need for companies like ours to do more to empower local communities; the solution does not lie in the actions of a single company like ours to fix all these challenges. We can’t do everything, but we can and must do something to uplift and empower the local communities in which we work and from where we secure our business opportunities. To this end, we have carefully considered what we need to do to play a role in solving this problem – together with our Corporate Partners (the mines) and our Social Partners (government & community leaders) – to assist communities to share in the benefits that are derived from local mining companies.

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Through our Social Economic Development Strategy we contribute towards empowering host communities living in our project/contract catchment areas with business support and skills that ultimately improves their livelihood. Our Social Economic Development programme has two key focus areas:

 

• Education and Training: with a particular focus on mathematics and science within secondary schools.

• Economic Development: with particular emphasis on supporting local business entrepreneurs to become self-sustainable and profitable