Learning a skill key for females at Jabez House

Learning a skill has been key for the females benefiting from the services which Jabez House in Barbados offers, given the levels of unemployment and problems arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was the acknowledgement coming recently from Shamelle Rice, Founder and Director of Jabez House, which provides vocational training and entrepreneurial opportunities for local female sex workers. She was at the time speaking as one of the panelists during the National NGO Impact Consultation held at the Hilton Hotel, under the theme, “The Impact of NGOs During COVID-19 and Beyond”.

“For us at Jabez House, it definitely caused us to revisit our way of doing things. We do work with females in the sex workers community and our programmes center around the ladies being able to come to our space. We focus on training, whether that is in hairdressing or nail technology etc. Our focus is on economic empowerment, so that you can use these learnt skills to find am alternative means of income and transition from sex work. So for us of course, given that was our model of doing things, when we had the pandemic, where everything had to close down, we had to decide what to do” Rice revealed.

“But what we saw was that even more than being able to provide those practical skills for individuals, what persons needed during that time was the psychosocial support, which was always a big component of our work. So we were able then to use the Zoom platform to do online sessions, to be able to still keep the ladies active and engage them and keep their minds in a good place, because of course, people were wondering how they were going to be able to make it through this. There was a measure of anxiety and uncertainty, which I am sure other persons would have experienced” she added.

“Then coming out of that, when we were able to reopen, I felt as if persons had a new appreciation of being able to make the most of what they could now do. Given the levels of unemployment, I  thought that being able to learn a skill,  persons were more appreciative of what they could do” she however stressed.

She meanwhile thanked Barbadians who responded to the organisation’s food drive during the lockdown period, which helped in providing food baskets to females in need, especially those with children. Key now for Jabez House, like other NGOs, is mapping the way forward in a creative and innovative way, to see how it can be more successful in its mission, whilst embracing a new way of doing things, even in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. (RSM)