Kids love adventure, and what could be more adventurous than descending thousands of kilometres underground to drill, blast and scoop up the earth’s treasures?
Theresa Nyabeze, a Vale mining engineer working as a frontline supervisor at Coleman Mine in Sudbury, decided to write a children’s book about mining during an exhausting car ride from Sudbury to Ottawa with four kids in tow – 10-year-old daughter Chiedza Maiya, son Tatenda Isaiah, a cousin from England and another 12-year-old.
Realizing they were bored with the usual technology diversions and getting antsy, Nyabeze engaged them in a creative exercise of writing a children’s book about going underground.
“I dictated it to them and they wrote it out,” she recalled. The children participated in the exercise and “got very engaged.” The finished product, Underground! My Mining Adventure, made its debut at the PDAC in Toronto in March and launched May 19th at Dynamic Earth in Sudbury.
“It has always been a passion of mine for kids to view mining as an interesting occupation and not to have any apprehensions about it,” said Nyabeze, who moved to Sudbury from Zimbabwe with her family at the age of 12 and completed her degree in Mining Engineering at Laurentian University.
The book follows the adventure of 10-year-old Maiya, who gets to go underground with her mom as a birthday present.
Maiya is fitted out with personal protective equipment, participates in a safety share in the line-up room, descends in a cage, rides a jeep, visits the garage and watches her mom drill.
The self-published book was printed in Sudbury and is colourfully illustrated by Zimbabwean artist Mischek Matambanadzo.
Nyabeze, 39, is passionate about diversity, correcting misperceptions about the mining industry and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. She almost sold out an original print run of 50 copies at the PDAC, and reprinted an additional 200 copies.
Underground! My Mining Adventure is available for sale at the Dynamic Earth gift shop and online at www.diversitystem.ca.
