Sustainability · People & communities
The site is run by the people who live around it.
BYM does not replace the cooperative and the community that were already at a deposit. It adds equipment, supervision and training to them. The commitments below follow from that starting point.
Commitments
What BYM commits to its workforce and neighbours.
- Local employment
- Site roles are filled from the communities around each site before anyone is brought in from elsewhere.
- Operators, sluice teams, maintenance, security and camp roles
- Cooperative participation
- Members of the licensed cooperative keep their place in the operation when BYM brings equipment and supervision to a site.
- The cooperative model is described under Our approach
- Training
- People are trained on the equipment they run, on the processing circuit and on safe working around pits, water and machinery.
- Delivered on site by BYM supervisors and technicians
- Grievances
- Concerns from workers or neighbours are raised through cooperative leadership or site management, and are recorded and answered.
- Either channel can be used; both reach BYM
- Local authorities
- Site activity is coordinated with the territorial and provincial authorities and with customary leadership in the area.
- Bafwasende Territory, Tshopo · Beni Territory, North Kivu
On the ground
Participation, in practice.
At Bavidili the sluice team is drawn from the cooperative that holds the licence. At Beni, excavator operators and the maintenance crew work alongside BYM technicians who service the fleet on site.
Training is practical: how a pump or excavator is run and checked each day, how the sluice is set and cleaned, how to work around moving machinery and open water. Supervisors are expected to stop work when conditions are unsafe.
When someone has a concern, about pay, safety, water or land, it can be raised with the cooperative’s leadership or with the site manager. BYM records what is raised and what was done about it, and keeps the local authorities informed of site activity.
Working with BYM