ABSTRACT
High on the agenda of South Africa’s transition into a non-racial democracy was the need to address historically generated socio-economic inequalities. Two decades later, South Africa ranks as one of the most unequal societies in the world and still grapples with inequalities within the highly polarised mining sector. Laws meant to regulate the operations of mining, and to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from mining activities have not yielded the desired results. This chapter explores the possibility of building relationships of trust between employers, employees and other stakeholders to produce mutual gains in an industry shrouded with historical inequalities. Through a contextually designed social change approach referred to as the “Sustained Relationship Building Model” (SRBM), the author facilitated intentional conversations and actions that contribute to collective participation and ownership in one of the mines companies, and with it the realisation of the socio-economic transformation for all stakeholders. Using peace-building and conflict resolution approaches along with an underlying ethos from the Christian faith, SRBM’s focus is to strengthen interdependent relationships as fundamental to systemic change and to define what the concept of Shalom might look like in the midst of broken relationships in the mining marketplace and beyond.
