Drip ‘doctors’
Inner-city residents certified in plumbing
Up until a week ago, Kamau Brown was unemployed and without a skill. Every now and then, she would do a little side hustle in downtown Kingston. But that wasn’t enough. Brown wanted something more; she wasn’t fond of what she was doing and desired something longterm for financial stability.
Her reality has been significantly changed for the better, having been trained as a plumber under Jamaica Social Investment Fund’s (JSIF) Alternative Livelihood Skills Programme. She is now certified in digital water auditing, leakage detection and basic plumbing.
“Now that I have my skills, people call me to fix their pipes and they pay me,” the Denham Town resident told THE WEEKEND STAR.
“My skills that I have now, I’m gonna use it to go overseas and work and further myself in the plumbing area. Right now, me and my brother, who was also a part of the programme, are looking to start a business where we do water auditing,” she added.
MALE-DOMINATED FIELD
Shanna-Kaye Cammock, utility warden project manager, from Change Makers Limited, says the programme was introduced based on a demand from the National Water Commission to have residents in the inner-city communities monitor leakages.
Brown, mindful that plumbing is generally regarded as a maledominated, said she feels as though she is breaking the glass ceiling.
“I never know I would enrol in something like plumbing, because all my life I hear that it’s a man job, and to see myself going out with so many men and getting my hands dirty, it feels amazing,” she said.
Denese Austin, 46, a practical nurse, was without a job for two years, so she decided to take on the venture so as to not limit herself to just one career. She says the programme has offered her more avenues to provide for herself, and she is even more active around her home.
“Well, the programme has made me more marketable, I can now apply for jobs in different areas,” she said. “Now I can also identify any leakage in my house and fix it. It prevents me from spending money outside because I can do my own servicing,” Austin added.
Dubbed the Utility Wardens Programme, the initiative is aimed at empowering at-risk youth through training across 18 communities in seven parishes. Participants were drawn from Kingston, St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon, St Ann, Westmoreland, and St James. Some 93 persons, 15 of them being females, were trained. Kenneth Williams, 37, of Trench Town in St Andrew, is glad he was able to acquire some plumbing skills.
“Them give a skill weh I can live off for the rest of my life,” the construction worker said. “Me love wah them do to me, because them take me off the streets,” he said.
Williams said he also felt accomplished to be in a position to help people in his community with plumbing issues.
“Right now in my community, any likkle burst pipe, a me dem call, and it mek me feel good,” he said “A nuh just that. A nuff young youths say them wah sign up when the programme start back, because them love how me life just different yah now,” Williams said.