Community engagement roadshow… behind the scenes – Chapter 1
“I landed at night in Zagreb, Croatia, ready to head to our iron ore mine in Prijedor in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the airport I was greeted by a huge sign with the ArcelorMittal logo on it and my name – this was the first time I had ever been greeted by a sign with my name on it, usually I am greeted by someone (usually from my family) saying, “hurry up, I’m double-parked”. Three hours later I was in Prijedor.
We have just started in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegoniva, a series of community engagement workshops. The aim? Help to strengthen our local community engagement efforts at several sites around Eastern Europe and CIS. In the next few days, apart from working with our team to prepare for the first workshop, I managed to get a few runs in at the local ski mountain, get temporarily lost in the snow-covered forest with the local CEO and have eaten more food than I thought was possible (trust me, this is a lot).
Today was the second day of the workshop, we have had participants from Legal, Human Resources, Health and Safety, Environment, Marketing, Corporate Responsibility, Trade Union, Mines Director, Technical Director and even the local Director and CEO.
The workshops are being held in Serbian and while I cannot understand what people are saying, I can see what is happening – people are working and learning together and developing a common understanding on the role of community engagement in ensuring the sustainability and continued success of ArcelorMittal in Prijedor.
Next up, Kryviy Rih, Ukraine…”
Author: Tobin Postma, CR Communications – Stay tuned to www.arcelormittal.tv to follow the rest of the chapters of this community engagement series!
7 comments
-
March 19th, 2010 by Oksana Chikalo
Dear Tobin, you will not get lost in Kryviy Rih although this city is the longest in Europe (almost 120km long) because you were in our city. Your friends from internal communication service are waiting for you here.
I think community engagement workshops will be very useful and intersting for every participant.
We are waiting for you! See you later!
-
March 19th, 2010 by Mary Carey
Nice work Tobin! It really feels as if we are there
-
March 23rd, 2010 by Charlotte
The workshop was followed by a stakeholder event yesterday. 31 stakeholders attended the meeting and, according to our colleagues in Prijedor, they showed great enthusiasm for supporting the development of the ArcelorMittal stakeholder engagement plan in Prijedor. This is a great start for strenghtening our community relations!
Can’t wait to hear about the developments from Ukraine! But, try not to get lost and don’t venture out after dark, as you Mum has told you
-
April 30th, 2010 by Sana
Great to hear that Mittal continues its efforts in supporting communities from which it benefits. However, in this post one gets the usual – information about one’s voyage rather than invaluable details of what exactly you are doing in your workshops in Prijedor? Why is it that all Mittal’s employees, dealing with local communities in which their company work, have no even basic understanding or knowledge of the area before their engage in any workshops? Perhaps that’s just coincidental or on purpose…In any case, here’s some free information of the area you are covering:
1. During the war, Omarska iron mine, was the site of the notorious camp of Omarska in which Bosnian Muslim community of Prijedor had daily undergone torture and murder by their Serb neighbours and employees of the mine.2. After Mittal’s acquisition of the mine, its Serb partners were not exactly forthcoming in articulating its recent past. Nonetheless, survivors hoped that Mittal will be willing to let them commemorate the camp and in doing so ensure that their suffering will be acknowledged by their Serb neighbours, in the long term. In short, the memorial project was envisaged as a way of assisting Prijedor’s communities to face with the recent past.
3. Mittal employs mediators, two individuals from Britain that have a charity called Soul of Europe. A combination of factors such as that main individual from the charity is a former Priest, Donald Reeves and the fact that the project is remodelled as a “reconciliation project” leads to more harm done to the survivors.
4. A year of “secret workshops” in which Donald handpicks ” a survivor and a perpetrator around the table” to agree what kind of memorial would they like results in a complete failure of the project and deepening sense of grievances of victims.
5. However, the achievements are as follows: Soul of Europe received large salaries for their job, wrote a dishonest book on their project as being successful exemplified in a “handshake between survivor and perpetrator” as though these people do not encounter each other in their daily life in a very small area they inhabit. It concludes that “spoilers” of the project were members of diaspora (read those who have suffered camps, expulsion and needed some acknowledgement); at the same time it does not mention the fact that local Serb chiefs remained opponents of the project.
6. Meanwhile, the impact on the local Bosnian Muslim returnee community is still palpable, in negative terms. As Soul of Europe’s workshops “divide and rule” made sure to create distrust among the victims, which is not that hard given the fact that their entire leadership and intellectuals were executed in the camps during the ethnic cleansing in the summer of 1992. And, that they have returned home to a new political entity of Republica Srpska, an entity that was founded on their suffering and loss.
7. In such a hostile environment, unfortunately, the returnees become an invisible minority to the local power structures, so when people like you who come across their home with complete ignorance began new workshops for strengthening community…they truly are non existent.
-
May 11th, 2010 by Tobin
Thank you for your comments Sana, my blog was supposed to give a very short, personalized experience of my week in Prijedor, rather than to go into great detail about the workshops themselves. However, I can understand that you, and others, might be interested in what was covered in these internal workshops so below you can find an outline of the topics covered:
Introduction/Stakeholder Engagement Overview
Role of community engagement in environmental and social management
Stakeholder identification/mapping
Cultural differences and their influence on stakeholder engagement
Documentation of community engagement
Grievance mechanisms
Reporting back to the community
The role of a Community Engagement Plan as a management tool
As for your comments relating to Soul of Europe, I can confirm that our relationship with that organisation ended in 2006.
Thank you for your interest,
tobin
-
November 23rd, 2011 by Owen
Tobin, you’ve clarified the fact that “our” relationship with Soul of Europe (I presume you are speaking for ArcelorMittal) ended in 2006. Could you also clarify what the current situation is with regard to the Omarska Memorial? It is now less than a year to go before the 20th anniversary in 2012 of the horrendous events at Omarska, Ljubija and other sites in the vicinity.
After Soul of Europe ended their relationship Mittal Steel declared that the Omarska Memorial project to which Mittal Steel had committed themselves would be taken forward as an initiative by the Mittal Foundation. Shortly after Mittal Steel became part of ArcelorMittal and the Mittal Foundation became, as I understand it, part of the ArcelorMittal Foundation.
Given that ArcelorMittal are the owners of and legal successors to Mittal Steel, it seems odd that this year ArcelorMittal’s chief executive officer appeared to be disowning the project and arguing that Mittal had never committed itself to the construction of a memorial at Omarska.
ArcelorMittal’s apparfent decision to walk away from a relatively small-scale gesture honouring the victims of one of the savagest episodes of the history of the past two decades in Europe sits uncomfortably next to the jollities of ArcelorMittal’s Orbit Tower in Stratford, almost ready to memorialise ArcelorMittal to the world at the 2012 Olympic Games.
Could you please clear up the issue of where ArcelorMittal now stand with regard to the Memorial? Should we now conclude that there is to be no Memorial at Omarska in the 20th anniversary year and instead ArcelorMittal’s understanding of what commands respect and remembrance in 2012 will be embodied in nothing more than the iron and steel of Anish Kapoor’s blood-red tower?
-
November 23rd, 2011 by Owen
I understand that at the time ArcelorMittal purchased and reopened the mines reportedly gave a commitment to the Prijedor authorities that they would give priority in employment to Serbs.
Not so long ago the workforce was almost exclusively Serb. Few if any of the non-Serb workers at the mine (who were summarily dismissed after the SDS took over Prijedor in 1992) were rehired and none of them as far as I understand received any compensation.
In the context of AM’s commitment to community-building in Bosnia and Herzegovina perhaps you could tell me what proportion of non-Serbs are currently employed as workers and in a supervisory capacity in the AM operations at Ljubija-Omarska.
Add a comment
CONTENT LOCATOR
