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October 11 is , a day dedicated to celebrating the voices and power of girls, championing their rights worldwide, and reflecting on the challenges they continue to face. This story is a reflection of what women are doing to help bolster the trades and plan for the future.

(AWW) Support Centre recently launched its flagship all-women skilled trades training centre in Toronto and its founder and CEO Natasha Ferguson said opening the school will also open doors to new possibilities for the future of women in construction.

Located at 7-1111 Finch Ave. W. in Toronto, AWW is the first Ontario-based, woman-led, non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women to enter the skilled trades. The new Toronto location, which has been operating since April, is the third of seven training centres that will be opening over the next three to four years. There are two other locations in Mississauga and East York.

“It’s really about training the women on how to build using new technologies, use the close loop trades which are drywall, painting, tiling, framing, most of those trades that are lacking labour right now,” said Ferguson. “We know the private sector, especially other construction companies, are having issues with running their business because of the cost to build and the labour shortage…A Women’s Work and its partners are trying to solve that challenge. What our team is doing right now is very important to the future of our country.”

AWW was founded in 2022 and started as a privately funded pilot program.

“This was a conception of mine that I built with my mom,” Ferguson explained. “She had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. In the last couple months of her life I was experiencing some major changes in my life: I was about to lose my mother, I had a one-year-old, I had a shaky marriage and this really just came about because I was also experiencing discrimination within the industry.

“I thought to myself what’s it going to be like for women who want to get into the industry and just feel like they can’t because of these barriers to entry?”

From pilot program to non-profit

She opened the first training centre in November 2022.

“The first week we saw about 150 enrolments,” she recalled. “We were shocked. This is needed, people want this, the women want this, so we started growing. Today we have over 600 enrollees and students.”

Today, AWW is a government-supported training program for women. The eight-week pre-apprenticeship program includes foundational training, as well as skills training in tiling, drywall, framing, roofing and painting. The training is followed by an eight-week paid job placement with an industry employer or a general contractor.

Ferguson is also the founder and Owner of EthelFox Construct Group.

“EthelFox is still up and running,” she said. “We’ve tied it together with the non-profit so that we can take the women that are graduating, the best of the best, and have them hired by my company, making my company one of the only construction companies in Canada to have 70 per cent women on their team. It’s a great fit. We’re working with some government bodies and private sector companies to have this come to fruition – being able to solve issues like the housing crisis, the labour crisis and the environmental challenges.”

Changing women’s lives

The program is open to women who are Canadian citizens, permanent residents and newcomers to Canada. There are no prerequisites related to skills or education and no age limitations. It is free to participants.

“Originally when I started this I knew there would be no cost,” said Ferguson. “Right now people can’t even afford groceries, people can’t afford where they are living. There are hundreds of people living on the streets and families, so how would they be able to afford to upskill themselves.”

Over 70 per cent of the women in the program are newcomers to Canada.

“They’re asylum seekers from places like the Ukraine, from Africa,” said Ferguson, adding some of them are living in hotels, shelters or are homeless. “They’re trying to get their lives together. Their aptitude for learning is very strong because they need to get out of their situation.

“These women are grateful and they’re thankful but they’re also just wanting to learn,” Ferguson noted.

If governments are going to meet housing targets, they need to ensure the workforce is in place.

“We can’t expect to build 65,000 houses (in Toronto) by 2030 when we’re ignoring an entire gender within an industry,” said Ferguson. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. Let’s continue to break down barriers, for women. Let’s continue to change mindsets and let’s be the change that we want to see in the world.”

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