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Build it and they come

Sanikiluaq students tackle housing crisis with construction

JANE GEORGE

Click photos to enlarge

Teacher and journeyman carpenter Brian Furgal, on right, stands with his class of students in front of the house they built. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF NICK NEWBERY)

Nunavut Commissioner Ann Hanson poses with the two official ribbon-cutters who officially opened the new student-built house.

Almost all the community turned out for the official opening of the house that local students built.

Nunavut's education minister Ed Picco says he'd be happy to live in Sanikiluaq's newest house.

And it's a house you might see anywhere in Nunavut, because the cozy three-bedroom house is similar to all Nunavut Housing Authority access kit houses - but this one has a major difference.

Students at Nuiyak School - not construction workers - built the 1,000-square-foot house, which was officially opened last week with Picco, Nunavut's premier Paul Okalik, Environment Minister Olayuk Akesuk, MLA Peter Kattuk and Nunavut Commissioner Ann Meetijuk Hanson in attendance.

Every day, starting last September, 10 students worked with journeyman carpenter and teacher Brian Furgal on the building. The project started with 11 students, aged 17 to 23, but the job ended up with 10 after the lone female became pregnant.

Student Daniel Narlik was keen on the project to the very end - he says he liked drywalling the most, but the best part of the long months of work came at the end.

"When we were finishing, it was exciting," Daniel says.

The only part of the project the students didn't complete was the electrical wiring.

"But our intention wasn't to train carpenters," explains Furgal. "Our intention was just to give an exposure to the different trades in the North and to the employability skills, work ethic, punctuality, teamwork."

The project built a house, as well as a new appreciation of what is involved in building a house.

"Most of the students live in public housing units, so they don't have a good idea of how much work goes into a place that's basically given to them. Now, they have an appreciation of what goes into a house."

Another goal of the project was to give students at risk of dropping out a new reason to come to school.

"We thought we'd try to do a half day building and a half day in class," says Nuiyak School principal John Jamieson.

As it turned out, the students ended up working all day on the house. Attendance stayed at about 90 per cent until spring, with more than half attending every day.

Along the way, the students ended up learning a lot about work.

"There aren't a lot of jobs in Sanikiluaq," Jamieson says. "Not a lot of people have had a job where they actually have to show up on time and do some work."

Click photos to enlarge

The Nuiyak School's T-shirt-making equipment churned out shirts to honour the new house's opening.

Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik took off his hard hat to greet the students who built Sanikiluaq's newest dwelling.

The project was a co-operative effort between the Nunavut Housing Corporation, the territorial departments of education and economic development, the non-profit Najuqsivik Society and the Qammaq Housing Association.

The school first tackled an addition to a multi-use school building three years ago.

Even so, it wasn't easy to get the larger project off the ground - the Nunavut Housing Corporation supplied the kit for the house, prepared the site and delivered the materials to the site; the school gave up a teacher; economic development gave for tools and the housing association provided an inspector while the school's non-profit Najuqsivik Society also threw in some money to buy more tools and supply power.

"A lot of it was 'in-kind' contributions," says Jamieson, who is known for his talent in organizing innovative school programs and won a 1997 Governor-General's teaching award for excellence. "It cost between $280,000 to $300,000 for that house."

The student builders may now take a pre-trades exam, but if they want to continue as apprentices, they must find a journeyman they can work under - and Sanikiluaq has a shortage of resident journeymen: there are only two, Furgal and an oil-burner mechanic.

The house the students built is intended as a residence for another journeyman who would work for the housing authority - although with 35, mostly families, on the waiting list for new housing, it may go to a family in need.

Two new five-plex units will be built this summer, and some students may be hired as labourers.

"They're really good helpers," says Alan Rumbolt, manager of the Qammaq Housing Authority. "They saw a bit of everything. I have a job opening here now, and one of the kids has applied. I'm looking for a jack-of-all-trades."

Based on the success of this year's construction, next year students will tackle the more complicated construction of a new daycare centre. The program will involve 12 male students for one half of the day and 12 female students for the other half, so more can participate and also attend classes at the same time.

Picco says this kind of project fits into the education department's renewed interest in seeing vocational training and industrial arts programs back into Nunavut schools.

"Not everyone needs academics, right? What we're doing here is actually passing on transferable skills. To grow and build Nunavut, we need all these trade occupations. Here's an opportunity," Picco says.

The Education Department is finishing its adult learning strategy and the Aboriginal Employment Skills Program material for Nunavut. Then, Picco plans to look for more money from Ottawa.

Picco's dream is a pre-vocational training school in Nunavut. The door to the new student-built house is an opening in this direction.

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