“My dad was a carpenter, so I grew up with him in his workshop, hammering in pretend nails and playing with wood when I was much younger. It wasn’t something that was encouraged for women to do necessarily. 

“Initially, people are a little bit taken aback by the fact that I’m working with tools, building things; it’s very rare to see a woman in the building industry doing this kind of hard labour. As soon as they see you’re capable, they’re really excited to have a woman on site. I’ve gotten quite a bit of work as a woman in a man’s industry.

“It’s very rare to see a woman in the building industry doing this kind of hard labour.”

Finding Radical Self Expression, through Immediacy and Participation 

“My first AfrikaBurn was 2023, it was a total culture shock. I’d never been around so many people, so much colour, really something out of this world for me. I wanted to build the event from the ground up! Leaning heavily on my carpentry skills, I started helping artists create their works, through the Art Department,

“I got introduced to AfrikaBurn’s Department of Public Works, and one of the crew said ‘Why don’t you try out? We think you’ll be great at it!’ I applied the following year,  I thought you know I’ll just be a little roustabout and doing little minion work, and they asked me if I’d be sub-lead for Carpentry at the Department of Public Works. 

“On site in 2025, I overheard at the lunch table one day the Temple team had pulled out, and I threw a suggestion in for a design. Later that day we had a meeting with all that were interested in creating a Temple space, and my name was put forward as the lead and I just jumped straight into it, I didn’t even give it a second thought! 

“Sometimes you just need to jump into the deep end, and it was the best experience of my life so far.” 

“After a couple of days I thought, well maybe I’ve bitten off a little bit more than I can chew. The process of creating something from just an idea just a concept that you’re kind of you know throwing around the room to drawing plans writing detail procurement lists and actually drawing drawing up engineering plans and then putting that into you know an actual art piece that’s in front of you again in a very short space of time and without anything other than a piece of paper and a pencil so it was it was a great opportunity for me to test myself in not just my skill but in my confidence levels in my abilities.”

How Each One Teach One fosters Radical Self Reliance, and facilitates Radical Inclusion

“Janine (DPW co-Lead) and Shae (DPW Carpentry Lead) hinted to me I would be a good fit for Hammerschool, and they put my name forward because teaching is something that I’ve always wanted to do.

“If I can teach people how to build their own house through Hammerschool, then my job is done!”

“Skills sharing, especially something as valuable as carpentry and building has always been a dream of mine, and Hammerschool has been an opportunity for that to happen. Some students haven’t handled tools before; it’s a completely fresh experience. One said she was very scared of using an impact driver because it’s quite a machine, and by the end of the second lesson she was so proficient, over the moon with herself. There’s a couple of people at Hammerschool who are learning how to build their own houses for example. “If I can teach people how to build their own house through Hammerschool then my job is done!”

Chantel is a Hammerschool Instructor and serves on Hammer Council.