Partnership aims to get mining book into local schools

When Theresa Nyabeze wrote the book ‘Underground! My Mining Adventure,’ it was always her dream to have it end up in as many hands as possible.

“It’s about a little girl who gets an opportunity to go underground for the day, and she has all these misconceptions about what mining is, the kind of people she is going to interact with underground, and what she’s going to see,” said Nyabeze..

“Really, the book is her journey of uncovering the real truth which is, of course, opposite than she thought,” she said.

That dream will become a reality due to an initiative with a local clothing company, My Mining Tee.

“For each Sudbury mining camp t-shirt sold, one book will go to a local school,” said Jeff Lafortune, My Mining Tee Co-Creator.

Nyabeze said it’s a way to equip schools with resources that are critical for promoting educational success, and the tools needed to stimulate young people’s interest.

“They learn from role modeling and seeing that he saw my book. It’s a natural way of meeting kids where they are to start to introduce them to the concept of mining. As a teacher, he sees the drying up of the pipeline which affects our industry,” she said..

Sudbury Mining Camp Tee shirts can be found at True North Made in the New Sudbury Centre.

The campaign will be ongoing, and books will be delivered in time for the start of the next school year.

“We’re hoping to raise enough for 120 books to be able to donate them to the four school boards and to some native communities in our area.  We hope to get them out to the students in their libraries and in their hands so they can see what it looks like,” said Lafortune.

Some of the terminology that appears in Theresa’s book, and some of the pictures are something that makes the wow factor for them to say: Hey I’m going to question somebody, I want to know more about this industry,” he said.

T-shirts can also be purchased on the company’s website at www.myminingteeshirt.com