By JOSEPH K. MBOYA
Mining refers to the process of extracting buried material below the earth whereas quarrying refers to extracting materials from the surface directly. As quarrying is a place where dimension stone or aggregate including gravel, sand, and crushed stone is mined. The products of the dimension of stone quarries comprise rocks such as granite, limestone, slate, marble, and sandstone.
Stone mining and quarrying have been the alternative in combating the unemployment rate by many unemployed parents in rural Freetown, Sierra Leone. The rise in capital expenditure on infrastructural development forces me to look into the outcomes as to how this mining is done manually (with no mechanization). The growing population, rapid urbanization, poor economic growth, and the migration of people towards urban areas have led to reasons why some young men and women from various ethnicities have dived into this painfully lucrative task in order to emancipate their joyous sorrow to sustain their families. Though stone mining and quarrying is a lucrative business when done mechanized, that isn’t the case for people who spend most of their life in the Quarries at Number 2 Bobor; Adonkia, and Metchem respectively.
The indigenous mining of stones by most stone miners is due to survival not that they’re happy for what they are doing and most sales are for hand to mouth or taking care of their kids. An interview conducted with a few miners showcases that some do have things to write home about though uneasy with the task. Mr. James Lombie [Stone Miner] has been mining stones indigenously for the past 20 years {2002-2022). According to him, he has been doing and was able to get married and have three [3] kids and a plot of land in his hometown in Moyamba District. He stressed on to say extracting stones isn’t an easy task but he just has to do it to fight for survival and put food on his table. As the only means of employment from which he has secured land back home and still working to raise some money to put structure, and shift into another trade as broken rocks aren’t good when you’re aged. All he wishes is for God to create an opportunity to rescue him from such hurdles.
The most renowned location for the extraction of stones by those miners is at the heart of the Bob or community located in the Peninsula region by River number two beaches [#2 Beach]. This quarry is the center for granite processing, standing at the site looking at the hills you’ll recognize the green belt set for miners by the Environmental Protection Agency[EPA] not to cross, this is to avoid deforestation, soil erosion, and many environmental hazards that will lead to environmental degradation in the community. Abdul Kamara commonly known as ‘Papa’ is from Port Loko, has been on this job as full-time employment and has a wife, and family. Intensify that what helps most of them is communal duties in which they work for each other intermittently.
Even though most of those involved are paid for the gravel or granites below a dollar per head-pan, sales are still fluctuating. These are some of the reasons why child labor is the order of the day in those quarries, most parents in other to accumulate more capital have to involve those kids in the extraction processes. Though education is free and one of the government’s top priorities for schooling, most can’t meet their financial constraints like books, uniforms, pens, transport fares, and extra classes. The worst of it, if public schools aren’t in their location, the parent-only option is to force those children to work in order to meet their schooling requirements, says Kaddia Kamara, a single parent from Rotifunk, Moyamba District.
Nonetheless, stone mining helps to reduce the rate of crime but such is the level of poverty in which many locals are swimming in with their families in other to make ends met and the government, well-wishers should extend a helping hand in providing public schools as much as they could in those quarry communities to foster the free and quality education for those who can’t finance their children in private schools.
