Assessing the Role of Education in Limiting the Negative Effects of Gold Mining on Young People in Dangassa’s Rural Community in Mali
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/ajsde.v5i1.7257Keywords:
Artisanal Gold Mining, Community-Based Interventions, Education-Sustainable Development, Environmental Health Literacy, Rural Livelihoods, Youth ResilienceAbstract
This paper presents the findings of qualitative research that explores education as a means to reduce the negative effects of artisanal gold mining on youth in Dangassa, Mali. Artisanal and small-scale mining has changed rural livelihoods and it’s exposing youth to dangerous working conditions, environmentally damaging practices, and educational disruption. Based on social resilience theory and education for sustainable development, this study reveals youth and community perspectives of the impact of mining as well as educational outcomes. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), and participant observations with youth, educators, community leaders and NGO representatives. Results indicate that, although formal schooling regularly cannot compete for time over immediate and lucrative returns from mining operations, experience-based vocational-environmental hybrid education built into local sociocultural structures appears to be valid mechanisms of fostering resilience. The study identifies economic pressures, cultural tensions and resource limitations as major barriers and the partnerships between government and NGOs and the sharing of knowledge across communities as major opportunities. In some sense, education works best not as a substitute for mining but as a building block for better practices, more diversified livelihood avenues tenable without new mines, and collective community protection from the harms caused by resource extraction.
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