IT’S four days before 31-year-old Colletta Allen’s wedding, but instead of daydreaming about her ‘happily ever after’ or losing her mind over last-minute preparations for the big day, she sits contentedly at one of 20 sewing machines making her fiancé’s suit.

It is her first attempt at making men’s clothes by herself, but after receiving training at the Miracle Tabernacle New Testament Church of God in Waterhouse, Kingston, she feels confident to take the plunge.

“We (she and her fiancé) were going to buy a suit, and when we start looking at the prices, we say no, it too expensive. So we just decided that it would be best if we bought the material and I make a two-piece,” she tells the Sunday Observer, her hands deftly moving over the brown polyester, carefully positioning it under the needle.

Allen is just one of the many people who have benefited from the Miracle Tabernacle Foundation outreach programme. Under the programme, residents of the often volatile Waterhouse community are trained in garment making, block making and information technology. They are also taught how to drive.

Pastor for the church, Reverend John Hardy, said the aim of the programme is to create job opportunities for people in the community, making them more self-sufficient.

“The kind of ministry that we develop here is not just the regular church programme. We don’t build ministries per se, we build people and we create an environment for them,” he said.

The garment factory, for example, is certified by the HEART Trust/NTA and allows people interested in garment making to receive the relevant qualifications. It was started in 2005 and each year certifies a minimum of 20 people.

“A number of them are now gainfully employed,” said Hardy.

The training facility, which occupies a section of the church, was established with a grant from the United States Agency for International Development and equipped with 20 sewing machines from overseas partners. In an effort to sustain the programme, the church has started taking on contracts to make clothes for other institutions.

“The aim of the foundation itself is – once we get funding from our partners overseas – to generate (more) funds. So, like the garment department, the students have now reached a level where we can take in work. In fact, we have just completed some 100 suits for some clients in the Cayman Islands,” Hardy said.

He added that he is currently in discussions with churches in Fort Lauderdale about making clothes for them as well.

While Allen has not been in the programme long enough to make suits for the church’s overseas clients, she says she helps out with the hand work, such as sewing on buttons, and receives a stipend for her efforts. The unemployed Waterhouse resident and a mother of one says this helps her a great deal.

“I can pay, like, my light bill and my water bill and then on Saturdays, I get a little day’s work somewhere else,” she says.

Hardy said the church’s block-making factory, which started two years ago, has also provided jobs for young men in the community. They are taught how to make blocks free of charge and upon the sale of the blocks, totalling 100 per day, they are paid for their efforts.

“When we don’t have any work to give them, they will hound you for it. They ask, ‘Pastor, when are we going to get some work?'” the reverend noted.

In an effort to increase the employment opportunities for the residents, the church recently acquired a truck, which they hope will help provide more jobs for the young men. The church seeks contracts to carry goods for various companies and then employs men to help load and unload the goods it transports.

For the pastor, who spent his earlier years in an inner-city community, getting such contracts are important.

“Because of the culture of the inner-city community, you have to be a ‘badman’ to survive, so the young men don’t make the upward educational movement like the ladies. You find them, instead, hanging out. So we are trying to garner their interest and get them focused in forward- movement in life,” he said.

It is for this reason that the church has introduced two new programmes this October. Forty young men and women within the community will be given the opportunity to pursue either hotel and hospitality management or restaurant service, and receive their HEART Trust/NTA certification after completing the two-year programme.

“HEART indicated to us that there is a high need in those areas for training because of the overseas programme, so they are asking us to embark on that aspect of training as well,” said Hardy.

The church has started making the necessary preparations. The foundation is being laid for a two-bedroom apartment to facilitate the training of those interested in the hotel industry while the canteen is being refurbished to accommodate those who will be trained in restaurant service. The apartment will be built by the Virginia-based charity group, Hope for Home.

Already, news of the church’s two new programmes has made its way into the community. Church administrators now have their hands full as they sift through 180 applications sent in by people eager to fill the available slots.

Hardy is pleased with the response. It proves the young men and women are willing to uplift themselves, and that there is a role for the church in helping them to do so, he said.

“To me, that’s the business of the church, because the church cannot preach redemption until the whole of a human life is redeemed. If you redeem a person spiritually and leave the person in abject poverty, then that is not complete redemption. Our philosophy is not just to take people to heaven, but to allow people to be able to live until they are able to go to heaven,” Hardy said.