LIFE is looking up for Tamika Russell, thanks to the skills training programme which forms a part of the Operation Friendship initiative.

RUSSELL... I hope when I am done here I will be able to get a job in the hotel industry (Photo: Napthali Junior)

The programme, started more than two decades ago, is intended to facilitate a decrease in unemployment among inner-city youths while at the same time bolstering their relationship with local police.

Russell is one of the lucky participants in the programme, with which the St Andrew South police are involved. Pregnant at 19, her life took a turn for the worse only months after she graduated from Denham Town High School in 1999.

Overnight her life was transformed as she engaged in the desperate struggle to take care of herself and her young son - Kenardo Thomas, now eight years old.

But all was not lost.

Dr Webster Chambers (left), chairman of the skills training programme of Operation Friendship, listens keenly to a male participant in the programme as he notes his progress with the construction of a shoe stand. (Photo: Napthali Junior)

"I was at home in Seaview Gardens one day when a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to do something with my life," Russell, 27, recalled. "I said 'yes', and that was when he introduced me to the school in June of last year."

With an unwaning interest in Home Economics since high school, Tamika's enrolment in Culinary Arts came almost instinctively.

"I always liked Home Economics in high school so when I came here I decided to get my training in that area," she said.

Since her enrolment at the Operation Friendship Institute, Russell has learnt how to prepare different types of cakes and an array of dishes. And like all the other participants from the inner city, she was only required to pay a $15,000-fee to register at the 2c Bell Road, Kingston location.

Executive chairman of the programme, Dr Webster Edwards, said the additional funds required to run the institution are raised through its sale of items produced at the institute, and with donations from HEART Trust/NTA.

Two Fridays ago when Career & Education visited, a group of male students were working on a shoe stand that can hold as many as 27 pairs of shoes. They said that the stand, along with other furniture in the institute's woodwork shop, would be sold to earn money for the programme.

"The Heart Trust is playing an essential role in the process," said Edwards. "Apart from helping a little with the finances, they also help in the provision of jobs for the students after they finish the course because it cannot be a situation where students are finished here and are left frustrated because they can't find a job."

Certification in the skill areas and a daily stipend of $50 are also granted through Heart Trust/NTA.

"How we see it is to incorporate income-generating activities which will assist us in meeting the recurrent expenses," said Edwards. "The programme is also financed through the sale of items such as diaries, greeting cards, cupboards and other furniture which are made by the students."

This year, more than 160 inner city youths are to benefit from the skills training programme, which offers a variety of courses. They range from welding and cabinet making to auto-body repairs, garment construction and Information Technology.

The St Andrew South police, in recognition of the benefits of the programme, recruits youngsters through their police youth clubs. Youngsters from some of the most volatile areas in the division - Greenwich Town, Kid Lane, McKoy Lane and sections of Duhaney Park - have been recruited by the police to participate in the programme.

"There are a lot of unskilled and unemployed persons in these areas, and if we can give them an opportunity to make something of themselves, then we would be one step closer in dealing with some of the problems affecting the areas," the police community relations officer, Inspector Dennis Gardener, told Career & Education. "Many of these youngsters and even the adults do not know about these programmes, but when we introduce it to them and they see the benefits, they become very interested in the idea. It is a means through which they can empower themselves."

He added that youngsters are also recruited through the school system.

For her part, Russell hopes she will be able to complete her three-year-long training, which will afford her the opportunity to gain employment in one of the island's hotels.

"I just want to finish all of my training in cooking. I have two more years to go, and I hope when I am done here I will be able to get a job in the hotel industry," she said.

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