eBusiness Weekly
Kumbirai Tarusarira
“We must dare to be great; and we must realise that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage,” advised William Howard Taft the 27th president of the United States.
A number of women today are determined to rub shoulders with men in the business circles and do not respect any gender codes on occupations.
Chiedza Chipangura, born November 1974 in Kwekwe, is one of the few female miners in Zimbabwe.
She has an open lesson of confidence building to fellow women dotted around the country.
Chipangura acquired her primary education at Mahombekombe Primary School in Kariba and secondary education at Moleli High School.
She later on did her tertiary education at the Zimbabwe Open University where she studied for a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting. She also acquired a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing with the Zimbabwe Institute of Management and went to Zimbabwe School of Mines for another qualification.
Chipangura said she always saw potential in her life and was determined to make it big.
“I started as a primary school teacher back in 1994, and I also worked for Norton Town Council as a cashier but I always saw a brighter future ahead of me,” she said.
She explained how she started mining and how difficult it was.
Chipangura ventured indirectly into mining in 1998 working for Central African Forge Company, a long standing steel forging foundry based in Norton.
“I started as a Person Friday (Business Administration front office, debtors and creditors, accounting up to Trial Balance, HR, and Procurement). That was back in 1998.”
“As I continued getting professional qualifications, I then moved jobs in the mining support services sector.”
“The most difficult part of that job was the debtors control part. Most companies in the heavy industries were struggling from the effects of ESAP, companies like NRZ, Tinto Industries (now Hastt Zimbabwe), Hunyani Pulp and Paper, were struggling while mining companies like the then BHP, Sabi Gold, Jumbo, Red Wing, Zimbabwe German Graphite, BNC and Mwana Africa were the good payers. This then generated my interest in the mining sector and helped me to be effective in my job,” said Chipangura.
“Still I worked with the big mining giants in the country and would travel on business to provide solutions to their different needs. I was quite outstanding in that I was one of the few women in that male dominated sector then, even security guards would simply identify me,” she said.
She said: “Often times the men would doubt the products I offered, I would be subjected to serious scrutiny than my male counterparts.”
As she continued getting professional qualifications, she then moved jobs in the mining support services sector.
She said: “I later became the marketing manager at Central African Forge Company, then moved to Glynns Bolts just before moving on to Craster Foundries as a Public Relations Executive.”
She also had a working stint in Uganda as a field officer.
“I would travel between Uganda, DRC and Sudan. This really inspired me to get into mining as a business after seeing the massive ASM activities in Tororo and Karamoja.”
“Back home I could not find a job in the mining support services sector so I became the Business Development Executive for Branding Concepts, a corporate branding guru which further exposed me to other sectors of the economy in Zimbabwe.”
Regardless of the fun and exposure, she traced herself back to mining but this time, as a personal business.
My first project was a chrome mining joint venture with the youths who had benefited from the Government empowerment drive back in 2016. The project went well, I was sponsoring the youths and it paid off financially.
She noticed the inequalities in accessing jobs between men and women.
“I was irked by how the marginalised women were underpaid but overworked”, she said.
“Eventually, we had challenges with the pricing of the product. There was no control or stipulated guidelines for the prices. We felt that more could be done to protect to the artisanal chrome miners.”
In March 2018, we then formed Norton Miners Association in a bid to legalise small-scale mining in the constituency, provide capacity building and advocacy for miners.
She is the founding Secretary General NMA then affiliated with Zimbabwe Miners’ Federation. She was then nominated as the Chairperson for Mash West region.
“When I visited the Kariba quarry site, my interest in glitter stones was then aroused. As a child, the most prominent black person in Kariba soon after independence was Mr Gumpo, a quarry and glitter stones miner. Immediately I got into a joint venture with two other male counterparts,” she said.
Realising that reports claim that Zimbabwe spends above US$40 million annually in the import of ceramic tiles she still hopes that people realise the importance of these glitter stones and start making use of it rather than engage in exporting it.
She has gone as far as organising a cooperative of twelve female miners, by the name Good Hope Co-operative to defy all odds and venture into the same.
