“I asked my workers if they thought I was a good teacher and they said that I was, and that I should definitely do it.” Britt's manner is seer confident and open; I'm not surprised that she's a good teacher. Later other project participants to articulate the same view: “Britt is really good,” says Tara. “You know how sometimes people have knowledge and they make you feel like an idiot? There's none of that. She's totally approachable.”

Training young women is new for Britt and she loves it. "It's not because they work differently than women who are older - it's just that their general way of being is different." As if on cue, I hear an unexpected burst of laughter from the worksite. Britt doesn't seem to notice; perhaps she's used to it.

“Well,” I say, “I was planning to ask you what it's like working entirely with women, but I guess that's what you do all the time.”

Britt pauses a moment. “Well, women think about what they are doing ... they're intricate. Take these benches, for example.” I look down, see the same thing I saw before, solid, well-built. “We had this little gap”- she points with one finger to the spot - “and they said, 'Oh, that doesn't look right,' and fixed it!”

“The name of the project - Young Women Creating Change. What does the n 'change' component mean to you?”

Britt answers immediately. “I can't quite connect it with the house getting built, because houses get built all the time, with or without women. But change is happening within the group dynamics. As I said, they're the younger generation. They're the women who are coming after me.” She takes a bite of her peanut ball. “They are creating change in the way they approach not only this project, but also life in general. They come together to work in an absolutely supportive and non-judgemental way. So, it's more the socio-political things ... it's not just building a house. I think this is more important, the way a whole generation is changing.”

I check to make sure the tape recorder is on.

“Is that okay?” Britt asks.
“Perfect,” I say.

The project began in November 1995 with a retreat to a B.C. Hydro-owned cabin at Stave Lake. There, the women in the group got acquainted and laid the ground rules for the project. Photographs of the retreat, tacked up in the corridor of the EYA office on Main Street, show grins and sun, bodies flying and seemingly instant connection.

After a working-gear shopping spree to the Army and Navy when they returned, they began learning the tools. First the hand tools, then the power tools; skill saws and drills. After that they built tool boxes, constructed the boardwalk and the benches. “Then we dug by hand for a month,” says Billie, a participant. "We didn't want to use machinery and spew toxic fumes into the air. In the last few days, we've kind of wimple out and used a machine. But we're going to great lengths to ensure that [the project] doesn't damage the environment. It's going to cost three times more than it would if we were going to go for the cheapest materials, which would probably be the most dangerous. We got our wood from selective cutting; we want recycled gravel, environmentally-safe paint.”

Almost a month has gone by since last visited, and the project is rapidly progressing. It is now a bright and mild spring afternoon, and this time I've brought a bag of ginger snaps from Uprising Bakery on Enables. Billie and I are sitting in the garden at the worksite, the women are no longer in rain gear but in jeans and t-shirts, enjoying the warm weather. The digging sounds like very difficult work, and I say so.

“A couple of feet under the soil is all concrete and clay,” Billie informs me. “Earlier on today, we had a pickaxes ... and [the ground] was frozen ... but we went at it with the pickaxes and peeled it back and there: were big slabs of concrete to break up.”

Now, however, the ground is leveled and the women are finally building forms. The hard work of the past four weeks has paid off and when I ask Billie how the project is going, she gives me the thumbs-up. “You can tape that,” she says.

For many of the women the project was their first contact with power tools, a potentially intimidating experience. “Everyone was fairly freaked out about the skillsaw,” Tara tells me. “I think it is one of the scariest: and most dangerous power tools. But everyone picked it up really quickly.” Shawn, another participant, attributes this to the supportiveness of the learning environment in the group. “I didn't feel there was any pressure from anybody... if there's a screw-up, there's no panic.”