Mine Training Society: Role Models

www.minetraining.ca

Challenge

Our children aspire to careers they are familiar with. So how do you turn young people on to what it means to work in mining? How do you encourage them to seek training in mine-related skills when the mine site is 300 miles away and only accessible by corporate aircraft or private ice road? You let them experience it through role models just like them.

Solution

We identified and profiled four successful graduates of the Mine Training Society from around the NWT. Profiles focussed on the unique benefits each derived from training and working in mining. No two stories were alike. Each showed what other young northerners could identify with — people who have chosen mining, and are glad they did, and through whom the benefits of a job in mining shine through.

Strategy

By getting the stories of the role models to young people, they could see themselves in mining. Role models were profiled in posters, radio advertising, newspaper advertising, and cable TV advertising throughout the NWT.

Outcome

In addition to paid advertising, local newspapers took up the stories and profiled the MTS role models. northerners also took notice. Positive comments came from the role models themselves, northerners, and MTS partners. But the most telling success is the strong enrolment in MTS training programs.