Tools for Life and the RONA Vancouver 2010 Fabrication Shop Video

Louie Naknakin has a personal connection to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Not as an athlete, not as a sports fan, but as a carpenter who builds items such as ski racks, wheelchair ramps and medal podiums for the Games.

Naknakin, 25, is one of 16 carpentry trainees at the RONA Vancouver 2010 Fabrication (Fab) Shop, a 30-week carpentry skills and work experience program that began in November, 2007. For people who have had difficultly attaching to the workforce, the Fab Shop equips them with tools for life.

By 2010, 64 trainees will have received Fab Shop skills training and job experience. The first of four training groups focuses on urban youth.

“This Fab Shop program is a real good thing especially if people aren’t in the workforce and they’re looking to get into it,” said Naknakin. “It’s the perfect learning step.”

The Fabrication Shop is also an essential woodworking facility for the Games — it’s where all the extra items that bring the Games venues to life will be built. By 2010, the Fabrication Shop and its carpentry trainees will have produced more than 8,000 Games-time items.

RONA, a National Partner of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), took a leading role in planning the Fab Shop and provided skilled labour to retrofit what was previously a storage facility into the workshop space. RONA also hired the supervising carpenters, covers the lease costs and provides all equipment and materials.

The program is taught by a Red Seal-certified carpentry instructor, three supervising carpenters and will be certified by the Industry Training Authority (ITA), the agency overseeing BC's industry training and apprenticeship system. Hours worked in the Fabrication Shop will apply towards first year carpentry qualification requirements.

Naknakin and his older brother Albert Naknakin, who is also a trainee of the Fab Shop, hope to eventually complete their four-year Red Seal certification in carpentry and together build homes for themselves on Vancouver Island.

Building a future

Tradeworks Training Society — a non-profit organization located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that provides job and life skills training — recruited the first 16 program participants and will assist graduates in securing apprenticeship positions. 

Rod Paynter is the Tradeworks job and life skills coach for the Fab Shop. He helps trainees to gain the confidence and focus on goals in and out of the workshop. And as the program progresses, Paynter sees students making changes for a healthier lifestyle.

“I notice people are eating more regularly than they were when they first got here,” said Paynter. “Some of them are getting into better housing than they had — and they can afford better housing since they’re receiving steady income during the program.”

VANOC’s Overlay team manages the Fab Shop and built flexibility into their own production schedules to accommodate a complete change of trainees approximately every seven months.

ACCESS — a non-profit agency delivering services to the urban Aboriginal community — will recruit and support the second group of 16 Fabrication Shop trainees.

Pride in Accomplishment

For Naknakin the idea of seeing his finished pieces being put to use during the 2010 Winter Games inspires a sense of pride.

“It will be cool to see the stuff that we made for the Olympics during the Games,” said Naknakin. “Like, for instance, the gun racks for the biathlon and that kind of stuff — you can actually point at it when it’s on television and say, ‘Yeah, I made that.’"

A Fab Shop Video

In November 2007, 16 young people walked into the new RONA Vancouver 2010 Fabrication Shop and strapped on tool belts to help build the Games. Fab Shop is not just a workshop though; it’s a classroom where participants solve math problems and learn the nuts and bolts of carpentry. The goal is to build skills for long-term employment.

To help tell their story in video, VANOC contracted Intersections Media, an organization providing mentoring, training and experience in film and video production for youth with limited access to resources. With mentoring from professional filmmakers, Intersections Media participants narrated and edited the Fab Shop video and provided camera and sound support.

View the video

Nothing Goes To Waste

The Fabrication Shop will have a permanent impact on the lives of all the people who work and learn within its walls. But Games products are built for specific Games-time purposes and will be removed and reused, or recycled, after the Games. Even the screws will be reused. Nothing will go to waste.

“Sustainability is very big at VANOC,” said Mark Hetherington, RONA Vancouver 2010 Fabrication Shop Manager. “We’re always thinking how we can reduce or reuse materials and, for that reason, we’re screwing everything together. We’re not gluing it, we’re not nailing it unless we really have to, so that everything can be taken apart and all the materials are recycled and reused elsewhere.”

Partial funding support for this carpentry training and work experience program was provided by Human Resources and Social Development Canada and the provincial Industry Training Authority.