the process and outcomes of this research project will influence policies and practices in the international mining industry. More importantly, our team will aim to produce policy briefs and academic work that will be useful for the Governments of Lao PDR and Thailand.

Finally, I would like to thank the Australian Government (Australian AID) for your fi-nancial support for this project.

Associate Professor Natt Pimpa

Principal Investigator

Dear Friends,

I would like to take this oppor-tunity to welcome you to our international research project. The title of this project is ‘Equitable Employment for Women in Mining Companies in Laos and Thailand.

As the principal investigator of this project, I really hope that this project will serve the in-ternational mining community and promote awareness of gen-der and mining as an important academic field.

From day one of the project when AusAID announced that our team has been awarded ADRAS grants on women and mining in Laos and Thailand, We have been enthusiastic about the idea of this project and have been working with

partners from Lao PDR, Thai-land and Australia. I sincerely thank our academic partners: the National University of Laos, Burnet Institute, Thammasat University, Ra-jabhat Petchaburi University, the University of Melbourne, and RMIT University.

We also need to thank our industrial partners: MMG LXML Sepon in Lao PDR and Akara Mining in Thailand for their support for the project.

The key aim of our project is to understand the concept of equi-table employment for women in the international mining industry, particularly in Lao PDR and Thailand. This issue is important for all stakehold-ers in international mining industry. We really hope that

Welcome to Women in Mining Newsletter

Project Snapshots. ..do you know?

The research has been funded by AusAID through the AusAID Development

Research Awards Scheme (ADRAS) under an award

titles Equitable Employment for Women in Mining Com-panies in Laos and Thailand .

DECEMBER 2013

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

Special points of inter-

est:

• Welcome to the Project

• Capacity Building Workshop in Thailand

• Our Communication

In May 2013, ADRAS awardees from 19 Australian universities and research institutions, along with

researchers from Samoa, South Africa, Malawi, Thai-land, India, the UK and USA were met in Canberra at the ADRAS Communications and Engagement

Workshop. The workshop will help to improve the uptake and use of research evidence by connecting researchers with Australian Aid policy makers and identifying the tools to communicate research find-ings effectively. Our team also participated in this

workshop and showcased the project to the interna-tional participants.

Our team met in Bangkok on 25-26 November 2013. The capacity building workshop was one of the milestones of this project since we involved all key partners from Lao PDR, Thailand and Australia in the workshop.

Jen Tyrell and Watinee Karnwong from the Australia Education International (AEI) also attended the first day of our workshop and discussed ideas on research and academic promotions among academic institutions and industrial part-ners in our region.

We discussed details of the project as well as the nature of Australian Aid and ADRAS project.

The common understanding among all partners is practical research helps to inform where and how our own and our part-ners’ resources can most effec-tively and efficiently be de-ployed. A robust and relevant knowledge base provides the evidence we need for sound development policies and pro-grams. We believe that our

project will lead to practical and academic outcomes that influence life and knowledge of people who are interested in international mining and gen-der equity.

We also discussed research methodology, process and data collection, research plans and actions for 2014. The work-shop was a great success for us. We look forward to seeing all partners again when we start the data collection process in each country.

Capacity Bui lding Workshop: 25-26 November 2013

Project Communicat ion We have designed several ways to support our commu-nication in this project.

Blog: We will include all news and activities from the project to the blog. The blog can be accessed at: themi-dasresearchproject.blogspot.com

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Twitter: We use twitter as a com-munication channel among our team , industrial partners and the mining community globally. Twit-ter is a way to keep our followers up to date with current information about your business. Importantly, it lets followers communicate with you too. You can follow our twit-ter : @miningforwomen.

Website: We are in the process of the development of website. I cer-tainly will update contents and de-sign of the website. You can aacess the website at kttp;//seabiz.asia

More than 50 leading develop-ment researchers from around Australia and the world ar-rived in Canberra in May to kick off projects that range from boosting women’s rights in post-authoritarian regimes such as Egypt and Libya to studying the effects of Mon-golia’s mining boom on herder livelihoods.

The meeting marks the start of the latest round of the AusAID Development Research Awards Scheme (ADRAS).

The scheme is AusAID’s flag-ship competitive research pro-gram, funding primary re-search projects to improve the quality and effectiveness of Australian aid in developing countries. The 2012 round awarded 50 grants to 31 Aus-tralian and international insti-tutions totaling $32.9 million.

Natt represented our team to participate in this workshop and discussed key strategies for communications and en-gagement with delegates from

AusAID and various other institutions from Australia and overseas. The communication strategy has been drafted and will be shared in our project website.

Another Day, Another Month, Another Year. Another Smile, Another Tear, Another Winter, A Summer Too.

May Lovely, Happy Times Decorate This Time Of The Season. May Warm, Special Memories Brighten Your New Year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

ADRAS Communicat ions and Engagement Workshop

Final ly…..

Presentat ion at the 2013 ICSSS Conference

We submitted two papers, base on our literature review and document analysis. The papers were accepted and pre-sented to the participants at the conference.

International Mining and Devel-opment: Lessons Learnt from Me-kong is the first paper we pre-sented at the conference. The focus of this paper is on the current actions of mining

companies and their corporate social responsibility.

The second paper from our pro-ject entitles corporate social respon-sibilities in Vietnam and Lao PDR: What has been done? The paper was well accepted by the research community and generated con-versations on this issue among the participants.

In July 2013, Rajabhat Mahasa-rakham University hosted the 3rd International Conference on Sciences and Social Sciences (ICSSS). The focus of the con-ference was development in Mekong region. Thus, there were a number of research-ers from countries such as Thailand, Lao PDR, China, and Vietnam participating at the conference.

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VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1