Lancara Instructor's FIREWORK PHOTOCRAPHY..........4- | Colin Mills displays his Studies of Light in Motion exhibit at the Langara bookstore \Y {Xx )-) c | 2a oseeereee By MEGAN BOBETSIS our women spoke about their journeys to find inner strength while working in male-dominated fields, in celebration of Interna- tional Women’s Day on Saturday, March 8. The Vancouver Public Library host- ed the event called They Went Whis- tling: Women Working in a Man’s World. Kate Braid, Sylvia Taylor, Sue Doro and Jane Hall each read from their memoirs about their experiences work- ing in fishing, construction, machinery and the RCMP. Doro said she would wear baggy ‘GUALITY FOR WOMEN ul HREMEMBER clothes to her job as a machinist, to take away from her femininity and prove she could do the job as well as any man. “You learn how to do your job better than all of them because you have to, to just stay equal,” Doro said. When Braid began her career in con- struction in 1977, she had never heard the word “apprenticeship.” “They don’t say that to girls in 1977 and I don’t think they say it very much in 2014 either,” Braid said. “Girls don’t often see [the trades] as a viable career for them, when in fact it actually is,” said Wendy Gilmour, an apprenticeship teacher for the Vancou- ver School Board. (PS'PROGRESSFOR ALL © HER RIGHTS MEGAN BOBETSIS photo Langara Oxfam Club members Rachel Mah, Leilani Reum, Tiffani Lee (sitting), Madalene Wong, Rose Cooper, Tayemi Blackman. Equality in the workforce Women share their experiences working in male-dominated trades Taylor said she used writing in a journal as companionship when she worked for five months at a time on a fishing boat. “Being one of a handful of girls in the entire coast of B.C. was extremely lone- ly,” Taylor said. Langara’s Oxfam Club hosted a so- cial media booth last week in anticipa- tion of Women’s Day and to bring awareness to their 2014 theme of “Equality for women is progress for all.” “Tf women are able to be in all the same positions as men and making the same decisions as men, it just means that human rights are being protect- ed,” said club liaison Leilani Reum. 66 Girls don’t often see [the trades] as a viable career for them when in fact it actually is WENDY GILMOUR Communities should work with city planners to keep neighbourhood identities amid rapid development By BEN ZUTTER uthor Harold Kalman spoke about [pesern healthy change in com- unities at The Marpole Museum and Historical Society’s spring fund- raiser, March 8. Kalman discussed how rapid change, especially in housing and public ameni- ties, has swept through many small communities of Greater Vancouver. He said this conflicts with institu- tions such as the museum and histori- cal society, which tend to resist change. “T believe we have to accept that change is going to happen, but our job is to see that it’s good change and not bad change,” he said. Many of the mostly elderly people in attendance seemed to agree. “The reality of today’s Greater Van- couver is that individual neighbour- hoods are all losing their identity,” Kal- man said. Jan Wilson, museum and historical society director, said, “Neighbourhoods don’t know each other anymore and that’s one of the things we try to do when we bring people together.” Kalman suggested communities strive to have their agendas overlap with that of the city and said the people in Marpole were still capable of writing the story of their own neighbourhood. Future projects of the Marpole com- munity will focus on a community gar- den and building expansion for cultural performances, presentations and exhi- bitions. 4’ ss ERIN BOE photo Marpole seniors play bridge and ping-pong at their tem- porary location in St. Augustine’s Anglican Church. & St. Augustine’s Anglican Church helps Marpole Place Neighbourhood House By ERIN BOE House needs more volunteers to help run its programs after a De- cember flood forced them to start working out of a nearby church. The neighbourhood house closed af- ter a sprinkler burst in its third floor ceiling on the weekend of Dec. 7. Te Marpole Place Neighbourhood “The damages were significant so use of the building is not possible until repairs are done,” executive director Cindy McMillan said in an email. The City of Vancouver, which owns the house, estimates repairs will take four to six months. The neighbourhood house’s tempo- rary location is nearby at St. Augus- tine’s Anglican Church. “The church has been very generous both with their space and with the cost of using it,” said McMillan. The challenge for the house is that Flooded Marpole House gets help all of the activities take place in the hall, and sometimes simultaneously, so it can be a bit noisy for some partici- pants, she said. McMillan and Jessica Fiddler, pro- gram assistant and volunteer coordi- nator for the neighbourhood house, are the only two paid staff, but participants run programs and handle equipment. The group is looking for more volun- teers to help run the reception, drop flyers in the community, clean the kitchen after meals and be a bilingual mentor for the computer labs.