Photo Caption: Shelly-Ann Thompson, founder of Golden Designs, at the JN Mall Workshop for vendors, held at the Creative Factory on Marcus Garvey Drive on November 16.
Blending artistry and passion, local social enterprise, Golden Designs, is empowering senior citizens with a renewed sense of purpose, enabling them to create fashion-forward pieces and earn an income.
Founder, Shelly-Ann Thompson, shared that her love for the elderly was the driving force behind the creation of the business two years ago. She said she always wanted to pursue a project to benefit this age group.
“My background is in journalism and initially I wanted to write a book, but then I realised that seniors needed more than just their stories to be told. Senior citizens actually need additional income and being a graduate of the Edna Manley College, with arts management training, I decided to start this business where we train seniors and turn them into entrepreneurs,” she said.
“We work with the seniors to transform traditional art forms, such as crochet, embroidery and macramé into stylish, fashionable items. Our primary products are hats, bags and sandals, all handcrafted by our senior artisans, who range in ages from 60 to 82.”
Ms Thompson says most of the seniors her organisation has worked with possess basic skills for the art forms that they produce, but before Golden Designs engaged them, many were creating traditional items, such as doilies, which have limited appeal to modern shoppers.
“So, what we do is train them to make trendy items that the younger people who now have the spending power will actually want to purchase,” she said.
Currently, Golden Designs offers craftsmanship-training classes for the elderly at its location in St Andrew at Regardless (The Manley Centre), the former home of National Hero, Norman Manley. The business also operates in Trelawny through a partnership with the Retreat Heights community and is set to expand further, with more training classes in Montego Bay, St James in January 2025. They can also be found on Instagram.
“At our St Andrew location alone, we have seniors who are coming from St Mary, St Catherine, St Thomas, Kingston and St Andrew. Right now we have 20 seniors employed across Jamaica,” she shared.
Ms Thompson explained that the business collaborates with government agencies, non-governmental organisations, churches, community associations and civic society groups to engage and recruit seniors for the initiative, some of whom are recently retired. For Ms Thompson, Golden Designs is providing these golden agers with a “new lease on life.”
“They may have spent 30 or 40 years working in the same sector, and while they still have their faculties intact and remain physically capable, they’re often looking for something different from the routine of their previous ‘9:00-5:00’ job,” she said.
For 74-year-old Valrie James, her introduction to Golden Designs in 2023 started a new chapter in her life, filling a void amplified by her quiet days at home post-retirement. Having worked tirelessly for years as a janitor, she chose to retire at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 at age 70.
Since joining Golden Designs, Ms James, a resident of one of Kingston’s inner cities, has transformed into a blossoming artisan, with her items also crossing borders. She played a key role in crafting some vibrant crocheted Jamaican hats that gained international recognition at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France.
“I am a golden ager who was just sitting at home, and I heard about it [Golden Designs] and decided to take part in it, and it has helped me a lot. I learned to crochet, and I’ve made bags and so on out of it. I’m very proud of what I have accomplished, and it is helping to motivate me and to get away from the loneliness at home,” she said. “The only challenge is finding places to sell the items sometimes, but people like what I’ve made, and I haven’t gotten any complaints so far,” she added.
Golden Designs is one of several businesses that participated at the second staging of the JN Mall Pop-Up Shopping Experience at the JN Bank Chief Office in Half Way Tree, St Andrew from November 29 to December 1.
Ms Thompson said she is anticipating further growth for her business from the event, having also been a participant at the inaugural staging in 2023. “We participated last year and that was very successful for us in terms of awareness and sales,” she said.
