This month the Joy Employment and Skills Upliftment (JESU) Club celebrated its fifth anniversary of equipping, inspiring and assisting job seekers in Gqeberha.
Sticking to its original vision of “starting small and dreaming big” the team at Joy to the Nations Church has good reason to thank God for impactful growth since they started the club by hosting weekly meetings where people are encouraged, equipped and registered on a database of job seekers.
Many of the job seekers are from Walmer Township an area adjacent to the church where poverty, unemployment and crime are rife. The Jesu club serves anybody seeking employment but especially targets young people.
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To date the club has added 1 543 people to its database of job seekers and placed 131 people in fulltime employment. Their ministry which takes place on the church campus from Monday to Friday — and off campus — is carried out by a few staff members supported by 32 volunteers and 76 skills-development and employment partners. Other milestones include 24 small businesses and entrepreneurs supported, trained and coached; 561 trainees equipped in Farming God’s Way; three artisans qualified; 46 candidates trained in the recently launched Harambee work readiness programme; 62 people given skills-development training and 53 trainees equipped through the Joy Stitches programme which imparts sewing, knitting, crochet, garment alteration and basic business skills to generate income independently.
As impressive as these statistics are they don’t even capture the human stories of lives changed and hope given to men and women who attend the weekly club meetings where they hear specialist keynote speakers, pray, do a Discovery Bible study, receive food packs to take home and sing the club theme song Bambalela (Never, ever give up!).
Glenn Weiss, visionary of Jesu Club and leader of Joy to the Nations church told me a few of the testimonies that give hope and inspire job seekers, staff, volunteers, partners and supporters to keep pressing on.
Stories like domestic worker Mama T who regularly provides food to street people, taking a homeless man, Lwazi Dumezweni, into her home and connecting him with the Jesu Club. “We almost got him a job but he had a criminal record. So he couldn’t get the job that we’d lined him up for,” said Glenn. “But then he got one at Albany Bakery as a driver. Six months later, he’s employee of the month and he’s now been in the job for nine months.” Lwazi also volunteers at Mama T’s street feeds and the bakery donates bread.
Glenn also told of a woman from the rural town of Patensie who attended training at Joy Stitches a project started by Jesu Club to equip adults and youth with sewing, crocheting and knitting skills. The woman, who had no prior experience on sowing machines is now making a living off a sowing machine in Patensie.
A key strategic development since the launch of the Jesu Club was the establishment of Foundation of Joy, a non profit company that enables sponsors to make tax-deductible donations to a growing family of integrated programmes which drive the church’s community upliftment thrust. Currently the programmes are Jesu Club, Joy Stitches, Heart for Alternatives (pregnancy crisis clinic and support) and Food for Africa (Farming God’s Way training and support). Glenn says their ministry has been noticed by a major company which is considering a sizeable sponsorship which would help 30 people in six different skills areas to overcome obstacles to securing employment.
If Foundation of Joy receives the sponsorship it will be their biggest to date. “We believe that if God can entrust us with more, we can change more lives,” said Glenn.
He said their skills development focus is in areas which can relatively quickly add substance to trainees skill sets – enabling them to get working sooner, rather than later. Many of the people they are training are people who would remain relatively unemployable without an intervention.
“Areas where we have made biggest inroads are cashiers, drivers and carers. Also gardners, baristas and general factory workers,” he said.
Joy to the Nations staff member Nkosivile Fenqe, who does the Jesu Club’s Harambee work readiness training, said when they see any of their people getting a job “you ant to cry with them, you want to laugh with them”. A woman who recently got a job at a restaurant wrote on her social media status something like “God making you a light in your family”, he said, emphasising that the impact of the job creation goes beyond the individuals who are helped. “It’s family. It’s community,” he said.
Fellow staff member Kaya Nkumbesi, who carries out the club’s Skill Wise accredited computer training and has been working with young adults for the past 12 years, said it is “scary that every second or third young adult doesn’t have a job”. He said it is critical to equip them with something that could help them to get work immediately. “It might seem small but one person having a job in a family can make a massive difference in terms of what that income brings and what opportunities it opens up for other people in the household to go and look for opportunities.”
Glenn said the Jesu Club has also been instrumental in spiritual growth. “We have had salvations and baptisms at Wednesday morning club meetings and some of the people are coming to church. I believe that as people see that we care for them they are starting to trust as spiritually as well.”
For more info about this inspirational initiative visit the Facebook page – JESU Club on FB or email glenn@jttn.co.za, kaya@foundationofjoy.co.za or info@foundationofjoy.co.za
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