THE GOVERNMENT has sponsored a pilot project to help wean young women off food stamps.A grant of $1 million was allocated by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to assist with training 100 women in home management skills. The project, to begin this month, targets mothers between ages 18 and 30 who receive food stamps, are unskilled or did not complete secondary school education.
"This is a part of our poverty alleviation plan to assist those on the food stamps to get off, give them opportunity to become self-employed or employable," Minister of National Labour and Social Security, Donald Buchanan, said recently.
He also added that the programme will "give women a skill so they can be independent...when they become self-sufficient and are able to provide for themselves - they will be able to be taken off the food stamps."
The Workforce Development Cons-ortium (WDC) will conduct 12-week home management courses aimed at preparing participants to work in the field of hospitality or help to start cottage industries.
"We are providing a skill which has potential to provide income generating opportunities," said WDC Executive Director Verah Blake. "We want to widen their options by moving them from being unskilled to employable."
Meanwhile, several women who receive food stamps expressed appreciation for the training programme, saying the food stamps did not help much and they could not find employment. Every two months, each woman gets food stamps amounting to $150. Some are already looking forward to helping themselves. Latoya Reid, 22, an unemployed mother from Dalvey, St. Thomas, while admitting that the $150 worth of food stamps "help out a situation," she said "it would be good to learn a skill because people who don't have jobs can't help themselves."
The new programme differs from the Skills 2000 project, which also focuses on food stamp beneficiaries but conducts training through HEART. Participants in this programme would not qualify for HEART training, which requires passing an entrance test at the Grade 9 level.
Sixty women responded to an invitation issued by the Ministry's social welfare office in St. Thomas for the new programme, but only 20 passed the initial test. The WDC is conducting final analyses of those tests.
There is also a difference in the scheduling of the classes, which will run two evenings per week instead of during the day. This is to allow the women to take care of their children during the days.
The course will include baking, cooking, cleaning, kitchen management, making soft furnishing, communication and work attitudes. The exercise will begin in St. Thomas and continue in other rural parishes before ending in Kingston.
Ms. Blake explained that "the rural areas have a large percentage of food stamp users and we wanted to start with them first."
The Survey of Living Conditions 1998 shows that 77.5 per cent of all food stamp users were from the rural areas. Information showing a breakdown of food-stamp dependents, according to gender, was unavailable.
