Summitomo Metal Mining Co., LTD. (SMM), through its local subsidiary, SMM Solomon LTD. (SMMS), has allocated and spent over $500,000.00 toward the provision of local scholarship awards for students in both Isabel and Choiseul Provinces in 2015.
A statement from the company said, the scholarships awards are for students in the land areas where SMM has been conducting prospecting activities in both provinces.
The provision of scholarships by SMMS dates back to 2012. So far SMM had awarded over $3 Million dollars of scholarship to students from both provinces.
“The chiefs and communities in SMM tenement areas select those they think are in need of scholarship assistance. The names of the recipients and their education institutions are forwarded to SMM and the latter makes direct payments to the education institutions.
“Although the recipients of SMM scholarship assistance come from communities in both provinces where SMM has mineral interests, the payments to education institutions cover the whole country.”
The scholarship award is a part of SMM and SMMS’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.
In addition, SMM continues to assist local communities in education, medical, youth activities, community cleanup, composting and eco-friendly stoves as a way to reduce carbon emission to the local environment, the statement said.
In recent past SMM assisted both national and local governments with the donation of 500 dengue kits to the National Medical Laboratory of the Central Hospital that should last for the whole of 2015, various assistances to the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Disaster Management and Meteorology with their waste management projects in the provinces, and the Honiara City Council and Guadalcanal Province with their anti-Malaria and Dengue campaign.
SMMS has been conducting nickel prospecting in Solomon Islands since 2006.