First aid training in Nampula mining communities
Within the framework of the implementation of the project “Associated miners of Cabo Delgado and Nampula practice dignified, ethical, clean and environmentally sustainable artisanal and small-scale mining”, financed by the Generalitat Valenciana and implemented by medicusmundi and Centro Terra Viva, it took place on October 31 and November 1, 2023, in the city of Nampula, a first aid training for 10 health focal points at the community level.
Artisanal mining
Miners are permanently exposed to different types of health risks.
These 10 focal points were made up of 5 members of the beneficiary mining organizations and 5 legal assistants/activists from the communities affected by the project.
Due to the nature of artisanal mining work, miners are permanently exposed to different types of health risks (occupational exposure). Low levels of production, which do not allow investments in personal and/or collective protective equipment, associated with negligence, in the event of an accident, and/or devaluation of PPE, for example, contribute to the loss of lives or incapacitation of workers, which is aggravated by the lack of basic first aid knowledge.
To mitigate these risks and their consequences, medicusmundi, in collaboration with the Mozambique Red Cross, trained a member of each of the 5 mining organizations benefiting from the project as a health focal point, providing each of them with basic knowledge of first aid, so that they can intervene in the event of an accident in the mine.
Because accidents not only occur in the mines, but also in the communities themselves, five activists/paralegals were also trained to carry out community awareness activities in the 30 mining communities covered by the project.
The 10 trainees from the communities will be certified as First Aiders by the Mozambique Red Cross.
This November, another training session in Occupational Health is planned, aimed at these same 10 focal points and more than 50 technicians from the district health services of the 3 districts of the province of Nampula where the project is being implemented: Murrupula, Mogovolas and Moma.
At the end of the training, the 10 trainees from the communities (miners and activists/paralegals) will be certified as First Aiders by the Mozambique Red Cross and will be given the respective first aid kit.
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