It was a pleasure to host De Beers Global Ambassador and Academy Award-winning actress, Lupita Nyong’o, in South Africa and Namibia last week, where she experienced first-hand the positive impact that natural diamonds create for the people and places they come from. Lupita Nyong'o toured our world-class operations at Venetia mine in South Africa and visited the Namibia Diamond Trading Company (NDTC) and Namdeb in Namibia, meeting our colleagues working across the value chain and seeing how De Beers Group’s activities contribute to the wider sustainable development objectives of our partner countries. She also visited our 32,000 hectare Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve, which provides a protected habitat for diverse flora and fauna in South Africa, and the #BeFree Campus in Namibia, a youth facility that provides reproductive health services and skills training. Reflecting on her trip, Lupita said: “I’ve had a relationship with De Beers jewellery for a while now and I was very curious to go to the source and experience the journey a diamond makes first-hand. It was a pleasure to meet with people working in South Africa and Namibia’s diamond industries, and I was especially struck by the female staff who are breaking barriers and having real success in a sector that has traditionally been the realm of men. It was illuminating and inspiring to meet women from the surrounding communities who occupy and thrive in technical roles, as drill operators, geologists, and engineers. “I have come to this region to observe and absorb for myself what diamonds are doing for people here and I have already witnessed how much more there is to their story. They have touched the lives of very many people and it is clear that the effects of diamonds on the society are as prismatic as the diamonds themselves.” Read more about her trip here: https://lnkd.in/ed7aRrNp #DeBeers #naturaldiamonds #BuildingForever
