Andrea & Kevin Techera

This tiny house will carry Kevin and me down long roads, across small towns, and beautiful landscapes. It will be our home and our mobile office. A space built on the belief that meaningful work happens close to people, culture, and place. Every part of this build is designed for listening, learning, and staying present in communities where suffering is often unseen and support is limited. Not long ago, I was offered an extraordinary opportunity: to study and live in Edinburgh with full funding for tuition, living expenses, and research support, along with a monthly stipend. It was a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was deeply grateful, and I considered it carefully. At the same time, I was working closely with a client in community mental health. For three months, we met consistently, building a therapeutic relationship through trust, patience, and deliberate clinical work. He spoke openly about addiction, despair, and his certainty that his life would end by his own hand. This was not abstract risk; it was immediate and real. Together, session by session, we challenged the belief that his story was already finished. When he reached a point where he could imagine a future, he told me he was choosing to live, he thanked me for our work together through tears. That moment clarified where my work belongs: in rooms where life is still undecided, where presence and skill can change an outcome, and where walking alongside someone can mean the difference between survival and loss. This build is a continuation of that commitment. It allows me to remain grounded in community work while expanding where and how I learn. One chapter of this journey will take us to Alaska, where I hope to learn directly from Indigenous communities and deepen my understanding of suicide and resilience in regions shaped by historical trauma, geographic isolation, and limited access to care. If you are here, you are seeing the foundation of this work being built—piece by piece. Each item.