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Despite the many barriers to
their participation, women have no difficulty talking about why they want to
take part in literacy and upgrading programs
- She really wants to do training so she can get out of
factory work. But it's not possible for her to do training because the majority
of the apprenticeship programs pay $5 an hour. She can't afford to be paid $5
an hour to support two kids and a partner. And at one point she was also
talking about doing secretarial training and so that led to a discussion in our
group that actually you would be better paid if you stayed in the factory
work.
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- Some of the elders say they are all dying off and they would
like to pass things to us, but because we are doing so many things today, we
don't take them as well as the young people used to and the only way that
they're going to preserve their culture and language is if we write them down
and keep them for their children and their children's children. That's what an
elder told me and I think that's very true... A lot of the young people, they
read in English.
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- We have wives that come in here. They come in here to get
away from their husbands. One woman came in here and her husband decided that
he was going to come in here the same afternoon. And she called us and changed
hers to another evening.
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- I hated being helpless. Helplessness is my number one enemy.
There is nothing worse than feeling helpless in a situation when you can't help
it. And I hated that so much. I was determined to get myself out of there and I
had a good family to help me.
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- When a husband and wife team come, it's very important for us
to keep control of that. Because a lot of women see this as a sanctuary. And a
lot of the women come here and they sit down and they can have a chit and chat
and, even if they get the crap beaten out of them when they go home, this is
theirs. So we don't have a lot of men. I mean, we have to allow them in, but...
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- It's a reason to come out of the house ... East Indian
ladies, we aren't allowed, we don't want, to go out to drink or go to dances or
anything like that. The only thing for us is coming to school. The only way we
can come out. That's our out-going-going wherever you go [on class trips].
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- One girl took the first job she'd ever had in her life. It
was a cashier at the grocery store. But I think that took a certain amount of
hauling yourself up out of a rut and saying I'm going to do this, earn a wage.
Especially when her husband didn't work. It was putting herself in a vulnerable
position. A threatening position. So it must have taken something inside of
herself to do that. And she obviously took a lot of joy out of doing that, out
of being in that job.
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- Women stay in school longer, have higher educational levels,
higher skill levels, more flexible in their job aspirations, less stereotyped,
less narrow in their perceptions of self-and generally have fundamental
organizational skills because they do care for the family and they have to
balance their children and everything else. So if you go around town and you
look in the administration of the community, you'll find that it's dominated by
women. Highly skilled women.
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