The career and job-placement programme offered by The Source, in tandem with the University Township Project in August Town, St. Andrew, is already changing lives within a month of opening.

The Source, an initiative of Jamaica National Building Society, is located at Bryce Hill Plaza, 85 August Town Road, and offers a range of services including Internet access, small business development, business management services, access to JN small business loans, facility rental, among a range of other services.

But it's the career and job-placement programme which is breaking down barriers for local residents.

Intellectual capital

The University Township Project is the brainchild of businessman Karl Hendrickson who thought that, with their tremendous pools of intellectual capital, the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Technology (UTech) should be able to contribute to the upliftment of surrounding communities.

UWI Professor Barry Chevannes said responsibility for the Township Project comes within the outreach activities of the Centre for Public Safety and Justice which he heads.

He added that the project has got off to a good start so far.

"The community has been very receptive and applauding," Professor Chevannes said. "Feedback has been very positive from within the University itself."

Under the career and job-placement programme, a human resource specialist at The Source prepares interested residents for new employment and gets suitable candidates placed into jobs.

This involves guiding them to prepare resumes, preparing them for interviews, and instilling in them the need to always have proper attitudes.

The person behind this thrust is social worker Denise Erskine-Jones, who also does a similar programme for the Peace Management Initiative (PMI).

According to her, the career and job-placement programme at The Source is churning out many "diamonds in the rough."

The programme started on May 1, this year. It is not a job-referral scheme, but one which seeks to match persons with available jobs. So far, some 30 persons from August Town and surrounding communities have been trained and placed in jobs.

"The people are very enthusiastic," Mrs. Erskine-Jones said recently. "Word has spread about the programme and quite a lot of persons are coming in."

Sense of satisfaction

She said she receives a sense of satisfaction from helping persons in inner-city and targeted communities, as they need someone "to open the door for them."

"You have to design a programme to assist them in their quest to enter the job market," Mrs. Erskine-Jones said.

Among the persons she has helped so far is 32-year-old Allison Palmer, a housekeeper at Sandhurst Hotel in St. Andrew, who heaped praises on the job-placement programme being operated by The Source.

"It's good to have people who care for inner-city people," she said, pointing to the stereotype some employers usually have towards persons living in inner-city communities. "Whenever you go for a job and they (prospective employers) see where you live, no matter how qualified you are, they don't want to employ you," Allison stated.

She added that she hopes the job-placement programme at The Source will be expanded and that others for whom it is intended will get to know about the programme.

For her part, 19-year-old Carleen Bird recently applied to The Source seeking to be placed in a job.

"The process was simple. I find it easy to work with and the people there are just great," she said, while lauding the project.

"It gives young people a lot of opportunity and it also gives people a second chance," she stated.

In the meantime, Saffrey Brown, a community development consultant who heads The Source, said it is providing a number of essential services in August Town and surrounding communities that wouldn't otherwise have existed there.

"So far, our job-placement programme has been a tremendous success and has been very effective to date."