Jermaine Gibbs has a dream to become a one-of-a-kind entrepreneur. His plan is to combine his love of art with the training he recently received in cabinetmaking and construction through the Citizen Security and Justice Programme's (CSJP) HEART Trust/NTA Operation Friendship skills-training programme, in downtown Kingston.

Last Saturday, he was among hundreds of residents who turned out for an Opportunity Fair at the Drews Avenue Primary School in Drewsland, St Andrew, sponsored by the CSJP, a crime-prevention initiative of the Ministry of National Security and the Social Development Commission. His mission was to add another layer to his dream of operating his own business.

"I came here to get a National ID (identification) and NIS (National Insurance Scheme) card. I wanted to open a personal savings account, but because I don't have a National ID I have to get a lot of things. This would make it a lot easier. I was working on getting a passport, but there was an error on the form."

According to CSJP action officer for the sprawling Drewsland community (five phases), Adenike Stephenson, the Opportunity Fairs had become a significant feature on CSJP's community action pro-gramme because many residents lack essential documents to access the services critical to personal advancement.

"Passports, bank accounts, education, travel and general development are not possible for those do not possess these documents," she noted.

Getting the message

Drewsland residents are getting the message. At the end of the day, the CSJP had recorded nearly 700 registrations for various services.

Stephenson says the CSJP was determined to ensure that residents from its communities had all the necessary opportunities to make it in life, so the programme sponsored the cost of 200 registrations for birth paper, 200 for blood pressure and eye test and 60 HIV tests. All other services, including health testing, counselling and registration for CSJP-sponsored training through the HEART/NTA, were offered 100 per cent free to patrons.

Jermaine says he heard about the CSJP from friends whose lives he had watched the programme transform through skills training and social assistance.

"I got in touch with the officer and told her that I wanted to be on the programme," he said. "It's been tremendous. I finished level one in cabinetmaking and I'm now into general construction. I want to finish level two in cabinetmaking."

Big plans

As for the next five years, he has big plans.

"What I'm planning, no one has ever thought of. I'm going to use both my skills together!"

His enthusiasm is infectious.

As for the assistance by CSJP's officers, he says: "They are great. They have helped me a lot. Already I got a dozen HEART forms and I'm just gonna issue them out."

Across at the Registrar General Department's tent, the lines had doubled, parents stood impatiently in line with their charges or had them huddled in little groups under the shade of nearby trees.

One mom, Collette Foster, from Ballantine Crescent, was particularly stressed.

"My daughter is 11 years old. She taking GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) next year, but I never realised that there was an error on her birth certificate. They have her birth date wrong."

She is worried that, unless she gets it changed, her daughter will not be able to sit the local examinations which will place her in the nation's high school system.

Very helpful

She waved a battered-looking certificate, the writing is red, the paper a sickly beige.

"They say this is a old-time suppen, it can't do the GSAT."

She wants to replace it but needs to have the error corrected. As several CSJP workers in white T-shirts and blue jeans mill around her, she manages a smile.

"This (fair) is very helpful for me, because I did not know what I had to do to fix this, but I still worried about my daughter."

Seventeen-year-old Tracey-Ann Godfrey came to access the free health services, and brought her mother and young sibling. This year, she will restart her CSJP-sponsored training in foods, at the HEART/NTA.

"I started before but I had to stop because my mother got pregnant, but ah starting back in September. Everybody say it's a good programme and it help them to get a work."

She wants to set up her own business in food or cosmetology.

A tough move? Maybe not, says Community Development Committee president Norris Aslam, who praises the work of the different agencies in transforming Drewsland.

"It's a tough community, lots of dropouts, lots of fatherless because of the violence, and the problem is money, but we are creating some things to create employment and the members are willing to go with that."