Office of the Prime Minister

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A group of unemployed young women from 16 communities in St. Thomas are now equipped with skills to enable them to start viable income generating projects.

The women were presented with certificates at a graduation ceremony held on December 14, after completing a one-week skills training workshop on gluten and soy milk production and floral arrangement held at the Anglican Church Hall in Morant Bay, St. Thomas.

This was the second in a series of workshops organized by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in collaboration with the Social Development Commission (SDC) office in St Thomas and Ashanti Enterprise. The first was held in Kingston and involved women from inner-city communities.

On day four of the training session, the women had a variety of bottled soy milk products on display. There were labeled bottled soy beverages, such as punches, beet root soy milk, soy milk and carrot, chocolate soy and soy blended with stout and peanuts.

Floral arrangement skills taught included how to arrange corsages, boutonnières, table, wreath, balloon and baskets. This aspect of the training was spearheaded by Verona O'Connor, Parish Co-ordinator, and the National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC). Presentations on sexual reproductive health were done by UNFPA representatives, Derven Patrick and Ilsa Banks.

Additionally, the women were trained to make vegetable gluten, using whole wheat flour and to produce soy milk from soy beans. The gluten was used to produce a variety of dishes, such as gluten steak, chop suey with gluten, curried gluten, gluten run-down, and gluten in ackee.

There were presentations on the costing of items, the importance of learning a skill, HIV/AIDS and how to start a business.

Johns Town resident, Nicole Mayne, who recently graduated from Morant Bay High School, St. Thomas, tells JIS News that she plans to use her skills to start making gift baskets and soy milk to sell in her community. She said funds from the project will go towards helping her to further her education.

She plans to market her products by printing and distributing flyers to persons in her community as well as selling the idea to supermarkets and business places in her community.

Another participant, Trisha Mignott, from Hillside in the parish, says she is grateful for being chosen to attend the workshop, adding that it has increased her knowledge on the use and production of soy milk and the different dishes that can be made using the product.

A member of the Hillside Youth Club, Trisha said she will be sharing her knowledge with the 32-member youth group in her community.

"So far, it has been very interesting. My husband is not really a vegetarian but he is a health conscious person and now that I have learnt something new, I can pass it on to him," Allison Graham of Lyssons, St. Thomas tells JIS News.

Allison says she had learnt a lot from the workshop and thanks the organisers and the UNFPA for offering the training in the parish.

"It is important for us as young people that when training is taking place, we participate and learn as much as we can," she says.

Yvonne Hope, trainer and proprietor of Ashanti Enterprise in Hope Gardens, St. Andrew, says the idea to teach women to make soy beverages and gluten was born out of a need to find other ways for rural women to earn a livelihood. In addition, she has been using the products for over 32 years and wants to share her knowledge with other women.

Her idea received support from persons with whom she spoke, including Dr. Glenda Simms, Consultant for the UNFPA on Gender Issues. Mrs. Hope then compiled a proposal, with assistance from Dr. Simms, which was submitted to the UNFPA for approval and funding.

"It has been great. The women are very receptive. They want the course to last longer. They did labels and some of them came up with business cards and some have begun to receive requests for some of the things," Mrs. Hope notes.

She explains that the reason for teaching the women to make soy milk results from the growing demand for soy beverages. Moreover, she points out that a lot of the soy milk found in Jamaica is imported and will be economical for the women to make the milk for their home use.

For example, she says that one can get a gallon of milk from a kilogram of soy beans, which cost less than $100.

"They can make it at home or sell it within their communities, because some of them say their children cannot use dairy products and it is expensive for them to buy soy products," she adds.

Mrs. Hope stresses that the women will have to get their food handlers' certificates and approval from the Scientific Research Council (SRC) as well as the Bureau of Standards before starting their businesses. "I'll be keeping in touch with them to ensure that they stay on the right path," she tells JIS News.

Nikima Leslie, Community Development Officer at the SDC, says the agency is willing to assist the UNFPA in mobilizing the women through the Morant Bay Development Area Committee. Two persons were selected from each community to attend the skills training workshop, she notes.

"We were very happy, because based on our surveys of the different communities, we recognized that there was a high level of unemployment and from time to time persons cry about the need for having a skill so that they can advance themselves," she says, adding that the SDC has been linking persons to skills training organizations.

Sheila McDonald-Miller, Operations Manager with the UNFPA, tells JIS News that she is pleased to see the work produced by the participants.

"I'm very impressed. Actually I was a little surprised to see that they had reached the finished product stage with such high quality levels, in such a short time," she says.

She points out that because of the "overwhelming" success of the first workshop in Kingston, a decision was taken to repeat it in St. Thomas.

"We plan to continue in the New Year," Mrs. McDonald-Miller says, and that the UNFPA will continue to support projects which encourage women to get involved in economic activities.

"The UNFPA is a development assistance agency. One of our aims is to reduce poverty. So, through economic activities like these we hope to build life skills," she explains, stating that the workshops are for women, so that they can become more independent.

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