Société Métallurgique d'Imiter, represented by Mohammed Cherrat, Director of Human Resources and Communication of the group, and Youssef El Hajjam, General Manager of Precious Metals at SMI, inaugurated, on Thursday, June 6, 4 projects meeting the immediate needs of the populations living near the Imiter mining area. This is the first phase of a development plan initiated by SMI, including 37 projects extending until 2015, for which the Managem group has allocated a total budget of 10 million dirhams.

The Tinghir region, the first to benefit from this programme, was granted a total endowment of 1.77 million dirhams, distributed across actions aimed at meeting the immediate needs of the inhabitants in terms of health, education, and the promotion of value-added generating activities. Thus, 750,000 dirhams were allocated to the restoration and upgrading of multipurpose centres for women in 6 villages of the Ouaklim commune, while giving members the possibility to promote and market their production (mainly textiles) during an event scheduled in Casablanca. The second project inaugurated, in the presence of the Governor of Tinghir, is a school for nomads, built of permanent materials for an amount of 450,000 dirhams, aiming to reduce school dropout among the nomadic populations of the region. In the same vein, a school bus, worth 350,000 dirhams, was granted to the students of Timadrouine. Regarding health, SMI signed an agreement with the Er-Rahma Haemodialysis Association allowing the latter to acquire 172,000 dirhams of equipment for the benefit of the Tinghir centre. Regarding the choice of Tinghir as the first beneficiary, Mr. El Hajjam explains: "We conducted a census, in collaboration with the associative fabric present in the mining areas, in order to define and classify the development needs of the populations by order of priority. The Tinghir region is the one that expresses the most immediate needs. We have therefore worked hand in hand with the associations to concretise our action in the region and begin to establish a relationship of trust with the inhabitants, oriented towards the sustainable development of the regions where Managem is active."