Press release: London, 9 July 2014
International Women in Mining Community, a global platform for women in the mining and metals industry, today announces the launch of its own photo campaign. The campaign is calling on all women in the industry to submit their photo by sending it to us via email and asks mining companies to support this campaign.
The campaign aims to create a photo library on our site to redress the lack of stock imagery available depicting women in mining and thereby improve visual representation of the female workforce in the sector, as well as increase awareness of just how many women work in what is perceived to be a male dominated sector. So, whether you are a CEO, geologist, engineer, corporate adviser, HR, environmental or social scientist, a dump truck operator or an electrician – we would love to hear from you.
Commenting on the campaign, Barbara Dischinger, Director of International Women in Mining Community said: “International Women in Mining Community was launched in 2007 to support women in this sector. Having worked in the recruitment side of the sector for many years I am well placed to know that there are lots of women who actively work in mining, are engaged and passionate about their jobs but somehow they seem invisible for the most part. This campaign is a fun way to raise awareness of their roles worldwide.
“If we don’t familiarise the world with images of women working in the mining sector then we aren’t creating enough visual role models to women and girls to encourage them to stay/join the industry.”
This campaign has a number of objectives:
- Accurate depiction of women working in the sector
- Visual role models for younger generation, and even for families and friends of the women portrayed who don’t get to see them at work
- Showcase the amazing variety of roles in which women are employed in the industry
- Reflect the growing number of female employees in the industry
- Help towards culture change in a male-dominated industry
We would love to hear where the photo was taken and the context as well as your name, job title and employer. That is because our goal is that the combination of photo and detail will tell a story, the narrative will have the visual support of the photo and thereby become more powerful. The photos are great and allow us to show the real women in mining at work but the text brings the photos alive because suddenly this is a real person that has a career in mining. Most of us are passionate about working in the mining sector, let’s show that and explain why. We believe that the combination will do more to change the male-dominated culture than the photo alone.
All photos will be displayed on our photo gallery on the website. Many have kindly submitted photos and they can be viewed here. In Phase II we want to make a selection of the photos available as stock images for publications.
Please forward to your networks and share widely. If you want to tweet about it use hash tag #WIMstockimagery. You can find us on twitter @IntWIMCommunity
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All enquiries to:
Barbara Dischinger
Director, International Women in Mining Community
+44 7986 108 101
barbara@womeninmining.net
www.internationalwim.org
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Background on International Women in Mining Community
International Women in Mining Community was set up in 2007 as a bridge between existing WIM chapters, its members and women in jurisdictions where there isn’t a WIM chapter. It was set up for the women in mining community, to foster interchange and interaction, and to provide resources via a web portal.
Existing WIM groups on all continents are all independent & run separately. We interact with them and complement them by offering additional services to all.
Its objective is threefold:
- Our aim is to promote the professional development of women working in the mining and metals sector by providing a web platform forglobal discussion, networking and dissemination of information, jobs, courses and events, in essence relevant content enhancing their knowledge and possibilities. This in turn provides them with all the information and tools necessary to enhance their careers and promote their role as women in a wider business community.
- To bring all WIM group members and non-affiliated female professionals working in the mining sector around the world closer together, by connecting groups to groups, non-members to groups, members to members and members to non-members.
- To share success and failure stories that illustrate the challenges women in mining may face and how they turn them into advantages. We would like to engage male champions and men at large in this dialogue.
We have started adding projects to our current mix of offerings and are developing project ideas that are international in nature, transcend all groups and promote women in mining. The WIM Stock Image Campaign is our first initiative.