With a vision of undoing historical injustices, Northam Platinum has revolutionised the housing crisis associated with migrant labour by building houses for their employees and allowing them to become homeowners.
Unity Shiburi – Shift Supervisor at Booysendal Mine (60 Sec)
Unity Shiburi is a shift supervisor at Booysendal Mine, one of Northam Platinum’s green mining businesses. She is a groundbreaker in every sense of the word. Working in a predominantly male-centred industry is a challenge, but being a single mother, she is no stranger to adversity.
Unity worked at other mines before joining Northam, and although housing was provided as part of the employment package, it was never a house that she would own. Without roots, she could never fully settle. With Northam’s innovative housing scheme, employees are able to buy these houses at cost, removing a massive financial burden, and allowing families to flourish in their own private space. Unity’s life has been given purpose and permanence and along with that, she and her daughter are part of a wonderful, family-oriented community.
Tau and Valentia Chuene – Homeowners
Tau Chuene has been a mineworker for a significant part of his life. He knows first-hand the experience of being a migrant labourer. Historically, workers were drawn from rural areas to work on the mines and placed in hostels, hundreds of kilometres away from their families, friends and support structures.
But this legacy is no longer part of Tau’s story. In joining Northam Platinum, he was presented with the opportunity to be part of their employee housing scheme. Northam builds and provides comfortable 2 and 3-bedroom homes, in secure community settings that are close to the mines, and these homes are offered to employees at cost.
Tau and his wife, Valentia, are now proud homeowners, and don’t have to suffer the separation that was previously a fundamental part of working on the mines. As parents, they know that they can all reconnect as a family at the end of each workday, a critical component of a full, meaningful and dignified life.
Northam Platinum knew that they had to do things differently and embarked on a programme to build houses for their employees to own. No longer are seasonal, temporary, or contract workers migrating across the country, enduring the anguish of being separated from their families for months at a time. Now Norplats employees have the security of permanent employment and a comfortable home they can call their own. And so it is no surprise that Northam’s staff complement has grown from 10000 people in 2010, to 18300 today, a testament to the efficacy of this holistic shared value initiative.
Corporate Overview
With a vision of undoing historical injustices, Northam Platinum has revolutionised the housing crisis associated with migrant labour by building houses for their employees and allowing them to become homeowners.
In a world where mine workers have become justifiably cynical, Northam Platinum is doing ‘something special’. Families are being reunited, people are becoming first-time homeowners and young families are finally able to get onto the property ladder. This transformed environment means that workers are no longer forced to live lonely lives in dangerous accommodation, and the legacy of migrant labour is no longer an impediment to social and economic change.
Northam Platinum’s housing scheme is designed to enable employees to buy these houses at cost, removing a massive financial burden, and allows families to turn houses into private and dignified homes. The large-scale project includes the building of schools and clinics to build the roots of a stronger and more sustainable community.
The homeownership scheme epitomises the ethos of shared value business, where the company has a meaningful tool to attract and retain employees, and the lives of those employees are changed for the better, with positive benefits to productivity, mental health and wellbeing, and development and educational outcomes for children.
With a belief in their people, their product and their country, Northam Platinum is transforming the face of mining in South Africa. As it continues to grow, so too will communities around it expand and flourish, bringing about a new era of growth, potential and positivity in South Africa.
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