This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
Ontario Mining Association member Noront Resources is busy this summer broadening the foundation for future So You Think You Know Mining video entries. The company is spearheading The Mining Movie Making Summer Camp in several Aboriginal communities in partnership with DAREarts, Engage Learn and the OMA.
The hands-on community based program provides three days of sharing stories about rocks, minerals, the environment and traditional territories. Then students work to collaborate and create their own Aboriginal community video, which hopefully becomes a future entry to the OMA’s SYTYKM high school video competition.
The first camp, which was held earlier this month, involved more than 40 students from the Simon Jacob Memorial Education Centre in the Webequie First Nation. The second camp was held in the Marten Falls First Nation and later in August a camp is scheduled to be held in the Long Lake #58 First Nation. In the Fall, the team aims to take the program to other communities in the Ring of Fire area.
“The Ontario Mining Association salutes the creative leadership of Noront with this innovative outreach program of visual arts camps in First Nations communities,” said OMA President Chris Hodgson. “The OMA appreciates the support of this program for its high school video competition So You Think You Know Mining and we look forward to entries from students in these communities.”
The OMA’s SYTYKM high school video competition is an annual web-based arts contest. It is open to high school students from across Ontario and it challenges them to produce a two to three minute video that profiles the benefits of mining to society. The SYTYKM competition has numerous Oscar-like categories and more than $33,000 is up for grabs in prize money. Winners in each category receive a special trophy and a trip to Toronto for the OMA’s SYTYKM awards gala in June. The fifth edition of SYTYKM will be launched this Fall.
“After learning about the SYTYKM competition, Noront wanted to create a summer youth camp that could bring the talents of our trusted partners together to facilitate an opportunity for the Ring of Fire Aboriginal youth to tell the traditional and unique stories about the rocks, minerals and geology of their land,” said Kaitlyn Ferris, Manager Corporate Responsibility for Noront.
“It is wonderful for our team to watch the youth get excited to take what they have learned about geology and mining and put it into their own perspective and story as they work on their films,” she added.
Engage Learn is providing the technology and coaching for these camps. DAREarts is a non-profit organization, which aims to empower Canadian children who are challenged by life circumstances to unlock their potential through the arts and build leadership skills. Over the past 16 years, DAREarts has reached more than 140,000 young people.
Noront Resources is focused on developing the high-grade Eagle’s Nest nickel-copper-platinum-palladium deposit, the exploration and development of the Blackbird chromite discovery and regional exploration for additional deposits. The company holds a large land position in the Ring of Fire, an emerging multi-metals camp located in the James Bay Lowlands.
After SYTYKM is launched in the Fall for the fifth year, let’s hope the expert judging panel gets to look at some of these videos as entries.