New Initiatives

Give-Away Project – While we are an efficient, small organization now at full capacity, we are “giving away” our effective process. We also realize that the problem of poverty in the Washington region is far larger than one agency can address. Despite our excellent placement figures and success with job retention in 2008, Washington, DC, still has thousands of people who are unemployed or underemployed and need the services of organizations like Jubilee Jobs. We are now sharing our work-focused process with a wider community, with the hope that a greater number of people will be able to move out of poverty quickly through employment. Through partnerships with other workforce groups around the city, along with an increased participation from the business community, we hope to see thousands of currently unemployed and underemployed people in the area find the work they urgently need.

Education – A significant barrier for our applicants’ success includes poor education or lack of education. We strongly encourage applicants to obtain additional education and training as soon as possible. At every orientation, the initial step for applicants who want to utilize our services, we indicate that to achieve a “living wage” ($22.81 per hour in Washington, DC for one adult and one child), skills and education are needed. We want our applicants to realize that life-long learning is feasible for them and necessary to retain jobs and move ahead in their careers. We are now developing an education component to connect more applicants with educational opportunities for vocational and certificate-training programs, college enrollment, and to help them obtain grant funding and scholarships to pay for such education.