It’s a man’s world, released in 1966, is one of the songs that propelled James Brown to global fame. The lyrics were poignant. “This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world. But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.” How true! The African-American “godfather of soul” was right in many respects. But 57 years after “the Hardest Working Man in Show Busi[1]ness” sang those memorable lines, you still find today a no better “man’s world” than mining, simply because of the tediousness of the industry. Yet even in mining, as James Brown sang, “it is nothing without a woman or a girl”. So meet Olivia Dhlamini, RioZim’s senior biological oxidation (biox) metallurgist, now stationed at the Cam & Motor mine in Kadoma. A good 20% of Cam & Motor’s workforce is female, a remarkable achievement which proves that women are breaking the glass ceiling even in a forbidding environment as mining. All over Zimbabwe, at all the mines that Brick by Brick editors have visited in the past 5 months, there are women rubbing shoulders with men in both underground and overground positions. They are a credit not only to themselves but to all womankind and a rebuke to the newbreed of women who take refuge in ridiculous long nails and long eyelashes. In contrast to the long nails and long eyelashes, Olivia Dhlamini is very much at home with hard hats and technical jargon. An applied chemist by profession, she has been working for RioZim for 12 years and been involved in many projects, the most exciting, according to her, is her current – the biological oxidation technology in Kadoma.
“I have had the privilege of being mentored by a well-experienced mentor, Nick Holder, a South African who has 33 years of biox experience,” Olivia told Brick by Brick. “So I have learnt a lot on both the technical and management sides, right from the commissioning of this plant. “I have learnt the ins and outs and the challenges of the biox plant, for example how sensitive the bacteria are, and how we need to monitor any toxins that can affect our biox plant and reduce value for the shareholder. I also have mentees under me who are female metallurgists whom I am also encouraging to learn as much as I have learnt.”
Olivia is a graduate of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo. After obtaining an honours degree as an applied chemist (or process chemist who can work in any process), her qualification took her to various industries before it landed her at RioZim where, over the last 12 years, she has worked at the Renco Mine at Nyajena, Dalny Mine at Chakari and now at Cam & Motor – 3 of the 4 mines owned by RioZim. “At the moment, I am the only senior female metallurgist, but in the Group we have a woman who is a plant manager at the Renco Mine, and other females in senior positions in technical disciplines of the company.”
‘It’s not easy’
Asked about her experience with working with men, Olivia did not bite her tongue. “It’s not easy, to tell the truth,” she said matter-of-factly. “But I have had a lot of support from my male general managers and immediate managers. They have encouraged me over the years. “There have obviously been lost opportunities for promotion before, but with encouragement and good mentorship, I have been able to rise to the occasion and take up the challenge.” The lost opportunities for promotion happened partly because of the lack of self-confidence and partly because of the intimidating male-dominated environment. “It hasn’t been easy,” Olivia explained, “because working in a male-dominated environment, your voice needs to be loud enough physically to be heard, and as the males are highly competitive, you really need to bring yourself up to that level. And you’ve got to overcome your own insecurities as a woman and be able to have confidence in your abilities. I think those were some of the hurdles. That’s why I feel like I took much longer to get to where I should have got.
“Also, physically, the job is demanding. So as a woman you really have to be fit, to be able to walk up those flights, because those tanks are 1.2 million-litre tanks. So they are quite high, it is about five flights, and you need to go there almost on a daily basis just to check things out. So you need to be physically fit,” Olivia explained. So, was she passed over for promotion because she was a woman? “No, I wouldn’t like to say that,” Olivia said without any hesitation. “I would like to take the responsibility to say I didn’t take up the challenge myself. In some cases, I didn’t apply for the jobs because I didn’t have the confidence, but with time I developed the confidence. This is what I am trying to pass on to my juniors, any woman who is my junior, I am encouraging them to seize the opportunity and take up the challenge.” Looking at where Cam & Motor is coming from, Olivia can see a bright future for the company. “The stubborn ore which we are treating now through the Biox Plant used to give us efficiencies as low as 20% and 30%, but once we started taking the ore through the plant, we are now getting efficiencies of higher than 90% for the material that passes through the plant, and generally above 70% and 80% elsewhere. So that definitely points to a bright future and opportunities to grow.” Her message to Zimbabwean women is simple: It’s possible that we can break the barrier that men have set in the mining profession. So let’s take up the challenge.”
