subject: Mining Camps - Offering Affordable Options In Other Places Beside Mining Camps [print this page] When people think of mining camps, they often think of primitive shelters sitting around a dark hole in the ground. That might have been the case a few decades ago. However, today, that is usually not the case. Many mining companies realize that they need to provide adequate shelter for their workers to get the most work out of them. These camps provide shelters that are often better than what the workers have at home, especially in the poorer areas of Africa. These housing options provide hope to those that see their use in handling the housing shortage in Africa.
In South Africa, for example, many of the old black settlements do not have basic electric, water, and sewage services. This is a legacy of Apartheid where the money for this work went into the white townships only. Some of the black townships have a single water tap to handle the needs of several thousand people. Moreover, most of these townships do not have sanitation systems of any kind. When Apartheid ended, the number of blacks without adequate housing was appalling. While the government of South Africa has made efforts to change this, the housing shortage continues. Today, creative minds are looking outside of traditional options. One of their inspirations is what happens in mining camps for shelter.
Today mining camps use self-contained housing units to accommodate their workers. These units require little in the way of infrastructure. They come with solar panels to provide lighting. They have LP gas for cooking, heating, and even refrigeration. They have a rain collection system that moves rainwater into a holding tank. This provides water to the unit. The only real requirement is in sanitation. Moreover, there are affordable non-infrastructure options to handle this problem in remote areas. This same technology can work in other areas.
The housing shortage in South Africa and other parts of the continent continues. Without affordable housing options, the people have few alternatives to living in shantytowns. Even those that have housing share it with many others in their family. Affordable rental housing is also in short supply. This makes the housing shortage critical. Using the technologies and solutions employed in mining camps is one way that the people and governments of African nations can deal with this problem now and into the future. Thinking outside of conventional thinking will provide the best ways to get beyond the current problems and brighten the future.
