Gemstone ring raffle to fund female mining student

The special raffle will be held on Wednesday, December 2 and is organised by Women in Mining (UK), an organisation dedicated to promoting and progressing the career development of women in mining and minerals. It will take place at a reception celebrating the launch of the 2015 ‘100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining’ as part of the Mines and Money conference, Europe’s largest mining investment conference and exhibition.

Money raised from the rococo-style ring, which was donated to WIM(UK) by gemstone supplier Gemfields plc and owner of Faberge, will finance a scholarship for a female student on the MSc Mining Engineering course, based at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus, Cornwall, starting in September 2016. Raffle tickets are £10 each.

Frances Wall, Professor of Applied Mineralogy at CSM and a member of WIM(UK), said the decision to sponsor a female student on the MSc in Mining Engineering at CSM, the only course of its kind in the UK, was very welcome. “I think it is a wonderful idea. This very generous donation to encourage women to start careers in mining engineering is perfectly timed so that we can advertise the scholarship in January.” 

Professor Wall, who was the first woman Head of CSM and who is now the first woman president of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland and will be taking two female MSc Mining Engineering students with her to the reception at the business design centre in Islington.

“There are lots of women geologists but very few studying mining engineering, so we are hoping this scholarship will have some impact,” she added. “There are a number of great careers for women in mining, not just mining and minerals engineering and geology but in environment, law, business and finance.”

WIM (UK), which was set up in 2006, now has more than 1,500 members, from all corners of mining-related businesses and professions.