We also needed to plan for a wide variety of possibilities due to the unstructured nature of the Learning Centre and the fact that we don't know who will be in on any given evening. There were numerous instances where the activities planned were not entirely successful due to lack of interest, a different grouping of women, or a different kind of energy in the room. For example, one evening a much-loved craft activity was planned. Women just started working on it when an announcement was made about a Beauty Night being held at the Downtown Health Clinic a few blocks over. The room emptied out in minutes. Or at women's request an activity was planned, but on the night the instructor arrived with the materials, most of the women who had requested the activity were not in that evening due to illness. We tried not to see these experiences as "failures" but as conditions of our literacy work. Instead, we looked forward to those other chaotic events that were so positive. For instance, one woman came into the Learning Centre just as clean up started and was desperate to make a Christmas stocking for her cat. (Felt Christmas Stockings and other decorations were the evening activity). She quickly worked at her stocking, frantic at first but then relaxed as she got into it. Knowing she kept the instructor late, when she finished she looked up and said,

Conflict, violence and aggression are so much a part of women's lives at WISH. In the Learning Centre we knew that we had to come up with new ways to approach conflict that would respect individuals and respect the safe environment of the Learning Centre. We knew that our "authority" positions were both powerful and meaningless. At any moment, we could represent a powerful figure to any particular woman. We also knew that if women chose to be physically aggressive, there was not much we could do.