Women in Mining – Page 8 – Republic of Mining

‘Sex sells’: Mining company defends use of bikini video to promote Ontario’s Ring of Fire – by Jody Porter (CBC News Thunder Bay – August 09, 2016)

August 16, 2016August 9, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

KWG creates video featuring young women in bikinis to promote Ring of Fire mining development

An Ontario mining company’s use of young women in bikinis to promote the Ring of Fire mineral deposit is proof the development is off course, according to environmental group Wildlands League.

The exploration company, KWG Resources, published a one-minute video on its YouTube channel last week featuring two young women sharing “five facts” about the Ring of Fire.

Each fact comes with a change in scenery for the women who are dressed in bikini tops and cut-off shorts. In one scene, a woman identified only as Ashley sits on a swing and says: “First Nations is [sic] interested in sharing in the resources of Ontario’s Ring of Fire.”

In another scene, Ashley strides through the bush towards a tree, saying: “Tony Clement said the Ring of Fire would bring a hundred years of mining activity, spinning off jobs for generations.”

COMMENT: Can sex sell junior mines? – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – August 8, 2016)

August 16, 2016August 8, 2016

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Click here for the KWG video and Sudbury Northern Life’s comments: http://bit.ly/2beZQjy

I thought the days of trotting out scantily clad women to entice people to buy a product were long gone. Evidently not, if Toronto-based KWG Resources manages to separate investors from their money using such an archaic and humiliating practice.

Frank C. Smeenk, president and CEO of KWG, has posted a series of interview style conversations with a beautiful blonde woman on YouTube in an attempt to sell the public on his plans for the Ring of Fire. To wit he has hired actress/product-ambassador Theresa Longo. She lobs him a softball question about the Ring of Fire and he replies at length.

Finally in episode 23, two scantily clad in women in what looks to be a Muskoka cottage setting talk about the five benefits of developing the Ring of Fire. 1. The minerals there are worth $60 billion. 2. The mineral wealth is equivalent to Alberta’s oil sands. 3. There will be 100 years of jobs. 4. Chromite is used in stainless steel. 5. The First Nations are interested in sharing the resources of the Ring of Fire.

Today’s WTF ‘mining moment’ brought to you by KWG (Sudbury Northern Life – August 5, 2016)

August 16, 2016August 5, 2016

https://www.sudbury.com/

Junior miner testing the theory that sex sells, even when it comes to the Ring of Fire

You know how sometimes you see something and it leaves you scratching your head, so you go back (in the case of a video you found on the Internet, let’s say) and watch it again, just to make sure you weren’t hallucinating?

Sudbury.com came across just that sort of thing today. Junior miner KWG Resources is selling the Ring of Fire deposit in northwestern Ontario, of which it has several claims in the still-undeveloped chromite hotspot, using girls in bikinis. Yes, girls in bikinis selling a mining development.

It’s quite likely the weirdest promotional video for a mining claim ever produced.

[Zimbabwe diamonds] Women Brave Challenges To Scrape A Living In Mining – by Dumisani Nyoni (Radio Voice Of The People – June 8, 2016)

June 9, 2016

http://www.radiovop.com/

Bulawayo, June 09, 2016 – The face of Nomusa Dube, 40, is dusted red with soil as she and her five female colleagues take a brief lunch break. They have been working since dawn on their gold claim in Esigodini, 49 kilometres from Bulawayo along the Bulawayo-Beitbridge road.

She joined the male-dominated industry in 2014 after her husband succumbed to cancer in 2013. “By that time, I saw my world crumbling as I had nowhere to turn to. Two of my children were at high school and three at primary level. Therefore, I was supposed to pay for their school fees, clothe and feed them,” Dube said, checking the sun’s position – a traditional old practice of estimating time – ready to go back to work.

She tried vending in Bulawayo, but with little success. Low returns, and constant raids from municipality police confiscating their wares sucked her strength. In 2013, government invited women to take up mining to supplement their living and Dube was one of the first to respond.

Western Women: Cashman saw opportunity in mining towns – by Jan Cleere (Arizona Daily Star – April 18, 2016)

April 19, 2016

http://tucson.com/

In 1800s mining camps, petite, persuasive Nellie Cashman, with a lyrical Irish brogue, opened boarding houses and restaurants within a matter of days upon entering town. Her ability to serve appetizing and affordable meals lasted over 50 years.

Born in Midleton, County Cork, Ireland, around 1845, Nellie was 5 years old when she immigrated to Boston with her widowed mother and younger sister Fanny. By the time she was 20, the family was living in San Francisco.

After her sister married, Nellie set off for the brawling mining district of Pioche, Nevada, to run the Miner’s Boarding House. But it was prospecting that lured Nellie to the Silver State — she would go wherever a strike looked promising. And as soon as she arrived in town, she set about opening a restaurant and boarding house, providing food and shelter to miners.

2016 PDAC Distinguished Service Award Winner: Patricia Sheahan

March 10, 2018March 12, 2016

PDAC 2016 – Distinguished Service Award – Patricia Sheahan from PENDA Productions on Vimeo.

http://www.pendaproductions.com/ This video was produced by PENDA Productions, a full service production company specializing in Corporate Communications with a focus on Corporate Responsibility.

PDAC President Rod Thomas and Patricia Sheahan (Photo by Envisiondigitalphoto.com)

This award recognizes an individual who has achieved one or more of the following: made a substantial contribution to mineral exploration and mining development over a number of years; given considerable time and effort to the PDAC; made outstanding contributions to the mineral industry in the field of finance, geology, geophysics, geochemistry research, or a related activity.

Patricia Sheahan: For her unique and outstanding contribution and dedication to Canada’s minerals industry.

Patricia Sheahan, or Pat as she is better known, has a long and unique career in the minerals industry. As a leader and entrepreneur, she founded a worldwide technical information service for exploration companies focused on diamonds, base and precious metals. The subscription service, which began in 1972, has been indispensable for those in the field looking to make the next diamond discovery.

2016 PDAC Special Achievement Award Winners: The Bjorkman Family

March 10, 2018March 12, 2016

PDAC 2016 – Special Achievement Award – Bjorkman Family from PENDA Productions on Vimeo.

http://www.pendaproductions.com/ This video was produced by PENDA Productions, a full service production company specializing in Corporate Communications with a focus on Corporate Responsibility.

From time to time, the PDAC presents a Special Achievement Award that recognizes exceptional contributions to the mineral industry.

The Bjorkman Family: For their multi-generational dedication to geology, prospecting and diversity.

Bjorkman Prospecting is a long-standing Ontario-based prospecting company that has worked in locations all across Canada as well as internationally. Encouraged by his father, Karl Bjorkman started prospecting around 1990 and saw his business grow to include claim staking, exploration project management and technical support.

‘Just do it,’ Sudbury’s female leaders say – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – March 9, 2016)

March 9, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

When Jody Kuzenko left a law firm in 2004 to become in-house lawyer for what was then Inco Ltd., her employer asked her why she was returning to Sudbury.

“Inco isn’t a woman’s company,” the male employer told her. She replied: “Not now it isn’t, but I’m on my way.”

Kozenko, who moved from serving as legal counsel to director of refining at Vale, was one of three women who spoke about their non-traditional career paths at a breakfast Tuesday sponsored by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce. The event was held to mark International Women’s Day.

Gender has been a “differentiator” in her career, Kozenko told an audience of about 200 people, mostly women, at the breakfast.

Chile’s Women of the Mines – by Margot Bigg (Slate.com – Novmeber 13, 2015)

November 13, 2015

http://www.slate.com/

Working the famed copper reserves of the Atacama Desert has forever been a man’s domain. But that’s changing.

The arid plateau of the Atacama Desert blankets the northernmost stretches of Chile, hemmed in only by the Andes Mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Its vast expanse is nearly devoid of life, save for the occasional roadside alpaca pack or slow-growing cardon cactus.

But the Atacama’s bareness is deceptive, for just below the desert’s silky dunes and its moonscapes of salt and hardened lava sit Chile’s lifeblood—millions of tons of copper reserves.

I’ve come to the Atacama to visit Chile’s most important mine: Chuquicamata, known locally as Chuqui, run by the state-owned copper mining company Codelco. Though this century-old open pit copper mine—the largest on Earth—is still responsible for about one-fifth of the company’s total output, its resources have been largely depleted.

Dwindling production and the discovery of additional subterranean copper reserves spurred Codelco to start digging deeper, and the company is currently in the throes of a $4.2 billion underground mine development project.

Nunavik women say family demands keep them from jobs at mines – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq News – September 17, 2015)

September 17, 2015

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

“They want to make sure that their children are cared for”

KUUJJUAQ — Consultations with Inuit women across Nunavik earlier this year found that — not surprisingly — they face the same barriers to seeking and securing employment in the mining sector as other Aboriginal women around the world.

And one of those challenges is balancing work with home and family life in a job that demands that workers be away from home for extended periods of time.

Over the last year, the Kativik Regional Government has worked alongside the region’s Kautaapikkut mining roundtable, a body launched last year to encourage Inuit employment in Nunavik’s mines and mor specifically, to look at the under-employment of women.

Together men and women make up 15 per cent of all Nunavimmiut working at the region’s two mines.

But fewer than half of all Inuit working at the region’s two operating mines are women; about 44 per cent at Glencore Raglan’s nickel operation, and about 20 per cent at Canadian Royalties’ Nunavik Nickel.

Transforming SA’s macho mining culture – by AFP (Business Report – July 13, 2015)

July 14, 2015

http://www.iol.co.za/business

Female miners are battling to make their mark in the mining sector, and face a daily war for their rights underground.

Deep underground, where huge conveyer belts haul rocks to the surface, 33-year-old mother of two Bernice Motsieloa represents the quiet revolution transforming the macho culture of South African mining.

Motsieloa is a shift supervisor at Anglo American’s Bathopele platinum mine – one of several thousand female miners employed in a difficult and often dangerous environment traditionally dominated by men.

Despite an apartheid-era ban on women working underground only being lifted in 1996, 15 percent of all employees in the mining sector are now female, exceeding the government’s own target of 10 percent. But reports of sexual harassment are common, and some retired miners say female miners face pressure to offer sexual favours to their male colleagues.

Motsieloa said she has never suffered physical violence since first going down the pits in 2002 doing manual labour in a gold mine, though she vividly recalls the verbal abuse she endured. “It was hard. We were openly called names by our male colleagues who told us ‘this is not your place’,” she told AFP.

Commentary: Should we have quotas for women on boards in Canada? – by Catherine Wade (Northern Miner – June 5, 2015)

June 11, 2015

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

It’s no secret that the mining industry is behind the curve when it comes to hiring women and appointing female board members. What will it take to get them onboard? Although the last couple of years have seen some increase in women representation at senior executive and director positions, the pace of change is glacial.

There are plenty of rationales provided, but none provide a reason why the typical important factors of improvement to financial, social and general corporate well-being and similar economic considerations are not driving the right decision-making in Canada and in particular in this important sector of the Canadian economy.

But it appears the tide might indeed turn in light of the recent disclosure rules of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) and the recent federal budget — each announcing “comply or explain” policies requiring companies to implement a gender-diversity policy or publicly explain why they haven’t, as well as the increased industry conversation surrounding the importance of engaging women in mining in order to drive positive change and innovation.

[Mining Women Who Rock] Hard Hats & High Heels leaves a lasting impression (Northern Miner – June 10, 2015)

June 10, 2015

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

Innovative. Inspiring. Fun. That’s what the Hard Hats & High Heels fashion show and panel presentation was all about. Organized by Women Who Rock (WWR) and the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards (CAFA), the cross-sector collaboration featured Judith & Charles’s chic pieces and Alicia Woods’ Covergalls, all modeled by women working in mining.

Shortly before the models graced the runway in front of 300 attendees at the Art Gallery of Ontario on June 8, The Northern Miner’s publisher Anthony Vaccaro moderated a panel on how women working in the field and new graduates can dress for success. Panelists included Fashion Magazine’s contributing fashion editor George Antonopoulos, Holt Renfrew’s vice president of exclusive services Lisa Tant, Kinross Gold’s senior vice president of human resources Gina Jardine, and one of PwC Canada’s partners Marelize Konig.

WWR’s president and founder Elena Mayer notes dress code is something that isn’t being discussed often but vital in corporate settings. “For many — especially taking into consideration it is a male-dominated industry— they think it is a frivolous topic. But us women are tightly connected with the way we dress and self-confidence is connected to that,” she says.

The idea for Hard Hats & High Heels arose when Mayer met CAFA’s founding director Brittney Kuczynski at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference in March.

NEWS RELEASE: VALE’S SAMANTHA ESPLEY HONOURED BY ENGINEERS CANADA

June 3, 2015

SUDBURY, June 3, 2015 – Vale is pleased to announce that Samantha Espley, General Manager of Mines & Mill Technical Services (Ontario Operations), received the 2015 Award for Support of Women in the Engineering Profession from Engineers Canada.

This national award was given to Samantha for her achievements as an engineer and significant contributions in supporting women in the industry. The presentation was made at the Engineers Canada Awards Gala on May 21st in Calgary.

“I am humbled and grateful to Engineers Canada for recognizing me in this way,” said Samantha. “I feel blessed to continue to enjoy such a fulfilling career in mining and I will continue my work to promote engineering and mining as an attractive career choice to the next generation of young Canadian women”.

No free rides for women in mining – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – May 7, 2015)

May 8, 2015

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – A woman with extensive mining engineering experience told an audience of Timmins business women on Thursday there are opportunities for more females in the mining industry. She said it is now up to women to seek out mining employment and go for it.

Sophie Bergeron, the underground manager at Hoyle Pond for Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines, has worked in mining in both Canada and South America. She was the keynote speaker at the Women in Business luncheon hosted by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

Bergeron’s education as a mining engineer set her off on a journey to Xstrata’s Raglan mine in far Northern Quebec, where she took on a number of jobs because she said she asked for them.

Women are still in a minority in mining and while Bergeron said the numbers are gradually improving, she urged women to seek out the jobs they want and to aggressively ask for those roles. Bergeron said many of the jobs she has worked at came about because she specifically asked to do those jobs.

She explained that in all experience, she was never offered a job in mine production department.