Copper Town

Zambia knows how a copper boom usually ends: rich countries get richer and little is left behind but environmental devastation. This time, a new generation wants to change the ending.

In the copper town of Kitwe, Zambia has some of the richest copper deposits on earth, the metal the world needs to build renewable energy and AI data centres. The copper price is climbing, the mines are hiring, and young Zambians want in: a mining student betting her future on the industry, young men digging illegally in the waste dumps for whatever the mines left behind — all of them determined to come out of this boom with more than a hole in the ground.

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