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Doing it themselves
Women learn home maintenance/repair during course offered by Housing Corporation
Adrian Lysenko Northern News Services Published Thursday, October 14, 2010
Instructor Craig Hockridge looked at the mobile home's water tank, attempted a straight face, and replied, "I've got a scuba mask and scrub brush for you." A few laughs can lighten a lesson. Five women were learning a few important lessons on Wednesday, courtesy of the home maintenance/repair course offered by the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. The women, brought together by the Centre for Northern Families, were learning basic maintenance of a home and how its various systems work – whether it be plumbing, electrical or heating. "They learn things like how to know when a furnace filter needs changing and how to change it, functions of the water and sewer systems in their home, home safety, how to conserve energy," said Hockridge, a technical advisor with the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, of the six and a half hour course. "Basically what a person should know about maintaining and repairing their home." However, not all the lessons were new. The women chuckled when they came across a picture in their textbooks detailing how to use a plunger. "Some of what we're learning may seem like common sense to some of us, but there are also a lot of new things we couldn't do by ourselves before," explained participant Bonita Bohnet. "And we most definitely don't need a man to do it for us." The Housing Corporation offers the course to organizations in the city as part of its Solutions to Educating People (STEP) program. "As women, it empowers us to understand what's going on in our homes and try to fix problems ourselves," said participant Jessika Claros.
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