Sewing hope on vaccines
A number of tailors and dressmakers, who usually receive orders for school uniforms, are pinning their economic survival on the majority of the island’s children being vaccinated in time for the resumption of face-to-face classes when the new academic year opens this week.
Collie McLean of McLean’s Tailoring with a Difference told the Jamaica Observer that he hopes the number of vaccinated children continues to rise, so that the 2022/2023 school year will provide him with much-needed work.
“The other day when I heard they said that they got over 20,000 students vaccinated, I said ‘Yea man, that sound good.’ I appreciate it because once the place lock down, tailor close down, ennuh, because nobody not coming with a little alteration or anything,” McLean said.
“We have to just hope for the best. I don’t know anything else. I have been a tailor from September 1977. I learn the skill and come up. I only take it one day at a time,” he said, adding that he is looking forward to better days as this year’s sales have been lukewarm.
“It’s very slow. Normally, at this time of the year you have to refuse orders. But everything sticky now. It’s slower than last year because last year people were getting things and watching the time. But nobody is coming in this year. As a matter of fact, I have only gotten two or three customers this season, right before the lockdown days, and the uniform is here same way. You don’t hear back from them or anything. Normally, they would come in and collect already,” he said.
“A guy came in and order about five suits and him just come and take two. So three is here same way. Some people from last year just don’t come back. It’s difficult. But you have to just work with it,” he added.
The islandwide COVID-19 vaccination drive for students age 12 and over commenced on August 21, after the Jamaican Government indicated that those children would be prioritised for the first batch of approximately 200,000 Pfizer vaccines which arrived in the island on August 19.
More than 21,000 of the targeted 25,000 students received a first dose of the vaccine over the first weekend of the programme, the health ministry reported.
Jonas Matthews, who runs Matthew’s Tailoring and Designs on Greenwich Crescent in Kingston, said he, too, hopes many children will be vaccinated, not just for business, but for a better quality of life.
“I’m in support of it, not just for the money. The money will come, but it’s not just that. The child and the parent supposed to make a decision that they know they can live with for life because this is a one-way traffic,” he said.
“Nutten nah gwaan same way. From last year September I don’t deliver any one you can think of — shirt, blouse, skirt, uniform. I don’t deliver one single piece from last year.”
Seamstress Donna Downer also voiced full support of the move to vaccinate schoolchildren, partly because she fears that the dressmaking industry will go extinct.
“Nothing is going on for the industry right now. It’s down. And, if this continues, this industry will be dead. It will be dead. Vaccinating the children is the only hope. That is what I think right now. I took the vaccine because people have to come to me and I don’t know who is coming. So I protected myself against whoever is coming. I am hoping the vaccination will work because I need everything to go back to normal,” she reasoned.
The 57-year-old entrepreneur added that the overall vaccination initiative should be supported. She blamed virtual learning, curfews, and an inactive entertainment sector for the fact she has fallen on hard times.
“Since last year when this virus began it has been extremely slow. Normally, I would have a massive amount of uniform from different schools. It’s the same for church clothes and party clothes. People would bring their fabric and I make them. Last year, I got a couple of uniform and I had to get belts covered and buckles covered and all of that, but nobody turned up for any. I still have them,” she told the Sunday Observer.
“People normally bring their fabric and I make the uniform. I provide thread, beltings, buckles and so on. So you lose. You have to pay light bill and if anybody work with you to do trimmings or anything you have to pay them. I have been doing this since I was about 15, and now that it is coming back to the school season gain, nobody comes. I just got a few primary school uniform… not even a dozen. Nothing is going on,” Downer lamented.
Josetta Daley has had a similar experience. Daley told the Sunday Observer that parents haven’t returned for uniform they ordered for September 2020, and only a few of them have made orders this year.
“I have completely given up. All of my life I have been earning, and it’s the first that I am nearly down to broke. It is really discouraging. It’s a great lack. I think this is the real repercussion that we have had. I have been surviving but it’s a no-no. I have uniform from last year and the parents not even look at me and they know that they were finished. A few of them paid in advance,” she said.
According to Daley, most of her customers seem to be in support of virtual learning, based on the few orders made for uniforms this year.
“It’s a few days for school to reopen, hopefully. It’s obvious that the parents don’t seem to be hopeful that school will be opened face-to-face at all,” she said.
Though unvaccinated, she also supports the move to have children 12 years and older vaccinated.
“I believe in it. I am in support. If it’s a case where I had children that I am in charge of, I would recommend it. I am not in charge of my grand kids. But at my age, which is 74, I don’t see any reason I should have to take the vaccine. But I would recommend it to everybody else. Not everybody has the immune system that I believe I have,” she contended.
Well-known dressmaker in Vineyard Town, Kingston, 53-year-old Mable Allen, argued that, if most youngsters are vaccinated, the country would move a step closer to normality.
“If the children are vaccinated and go back to school it will be a huge turnaround. I want that to happen. I want everything to come back to normal,” she told the Sunday Observer.
“I have been self-employed for many years. Dressmaking is what allows me to have my house now and paying NHT (National Housing Trust). Now, I would be bathing in uniform plus money and I don’t have any. And when I don’t have any money, I can’t work,” she said.
“I get two uniform fi sew and I don’t even know if they are coming for it. I don’t have any work. No back-to-school work. It’s stressing. It’s worse than last year,” she stated.
“Last year I got some mask to sew and I had some people that came as far as from country to buy mask from me, and I sell them in bulk. Last year was 10 times better than this year. It’s terrible. I don’t know what to do because I have bills to pay right now. Right now I’m stressed,” she said.