Reconciliation in Action – Teck Chile
Within Canada, Teck Resources is known as one of the country’s largest mining companies, with operations in several BC communities. Less well-known in Canada is that Teck also operates in the United States, Peru, and Chile.
In 2016, the company began considering how it could positively contribute to the people of the Tarapacá Region of northern Chile, where it holds a majority interest in the Quebrada Blanca copper mine.
Herman Urrejola Ebner at the 2023 Indigenous Partnerships Success Showcase.
Herman Urrejola Ebner, Director of Social Management at Teck Chile, says the company decided a focus of action would be to work with Indigenous groups and with women.
Ebner describes the Tarapacá as a “a beautiful place full of life, full of opportunities, full of history, full of heritage, full of culture.” In the traditional culture of the Aymara people, who are indigenous to the region, women and men are considered equal, and Ebner says this equality can be witnessed in a range of activities, including the Aymaran ceremonies and they way they engage with the environment.
However, not all is idyllic. The region’s people lack access to public services and employment opportunities. Forty percent of the area’s Indigenous people experience multidimensional poverty (which differs from monetary poverty, in that it factors in lack of access to education and infrastructure). A quarter receive an income below the poverty line—double the rate of non-Indigenous people.
Many of the Aymara have been separated from their land, culture, and traditions, and the women, especially, face many challenges as a result. They experience high rates of domestic violence and have low access to education. They also have barely any political representation, in all levels of government.
The Teck team knew they wanted to create economic opportunities for the area’s Indigenous peoples. By helping to empower women, they understood that such empowerment could have a well-known multiplier effect—in that women tend to re-invest in their families and communities in ways that further accelerate economic growth and sustainable development across the board. They also wanted to create a program that was aligned with the values of gender equality and that incorporated women’s ideas, talents, abilities, and perspectives in developing local economies.
And so, the Originarias Program was created in a partnership between Teck and UN Women.
Ebner explains that the program is founded on three pillars: access to information, skills training, and capacity development; respect for human rights and Indigenous rights; and maintenance of cultural heritage. Moreover, Ebner says they wanted to help create a link between elder people and younger people in order to maintain and preserve the culture, and especially the language, that has been under threat of being lost.
“As a result of these three different pillars, we thought that the economic development was possible.”
The program was originally funded for one year. Ebner says it was very successful, not because of the program itself, “but because the women that participated in the program felt it as their own.”
In 2019, the Originarias program opened Centro Originarias in Iquique, Chile, the first center of its kind in South America. Its focus is on empowering Indigenous women with tools and training to develop skills, build networks, and improve their well-being through economic opportunity. Ebner says the center not only provides training on business and economic development—it also trains women to become facilitators themselves. Childcare is provided on site.
“It's been seen by the Indigenous women as their house, their home,” says Ebner.
In the six years of the program, there have been more than 2,000 participants. A key measure of the program’s success is that some of its participants have become politically engaged. Fourteen women from the program were candidates to political representation during 2021.
“In Chile, we have been under a very big discussion about rewriting a new constitution. And two women from the program were elected to be writing down this new constitution.”
The program, now in phase four, is working with the Indigenous women to ensure that the program can be self-sustainable and self-managed by them.
“We're basically supporting with some methodologies and encouraging an organic development of the program.”
Ebner believes that mining and other industries can benefit from understanding people’s culture and heritage, from “trying to understand that we basically are working in a land that belongs to people that was in there for thousands of years.”
“One of the main issues that we had to put aside when we start developing this program was to think that people have an issue with mining … And we have realized that the people [are] very open to look for different opportunities and to work and to be part of something. I think that we are just basically guiding a process that is being self-developed by them. And I think that there is a big opportunity to give that additional step forward and move beyond what can be considered traditional activities and sources of income to a more, for example, professional skills or business-oriented model.
“I think that mining is still afraid of having like a very real and direct engagement … But also, there are opportunities to move into more long term, very direct engagement and relationship with people and ensure that you are returning something to the land and returning something to the people. And, and in my experience, I think that the result when you open have very frank and open dialogue and conversation is very, very positive. And the only thing that you could receive is positive feedback and things that you need to take into consideration to move into the next step.”
He also believes that Canada and its Indigenous peoples have a lot to share with other countries.
“There are opportunities to have partnership with other countries to promote these initiatives and to support these initiatives and bring some of the knowledge, perhaps, of other territories, of other lands … [to] find opportunities to work together and try to teach the people how they could do this next step. How they can create their own companies, how they can create their own structure, their own governance. How could they move away from being just a small group of people working together to have a broader approach.”
Sponsored by Teck Resources.