Kelly Abrahams starts with fashion, continues with fight for equal opportunity

Kelly Abrahams went to the Dallas Fashion Institute in hopes of mastering the art of garment construction. Instead, she grappled with discrimination and was left to reevaluate the colour of her skin.

“You barely existed,” she told Women of Distinction.

“It was horrible because colour prejudice reigned in my day. I quickly grasped what I could. But I was not excited to use it because of the pressures I went through personally.”

Abrahams returned home in the late 1960s and reclaimed happiness in the skill when her husband’s colleagues started requesting her designs.

“My husband was a supervisor at Desnoes and Geddes Limited (D&G) and I used to make some fabulous bush jackets for him and all the other supervisors wanted them too,” the seamstress gushed.

With orders coming in constantly, Abrahams put an ad out for skilled assistants. After recruiting a few, she realized that aspiring designers needed formal training and mentoring. “I said you know what, I'm going to start a school and train people and then come back to sewing,” she shared.

Ka-Ju Fashion Institute was founded by Mrs Abrahams in 1987.

Since its inception, Abrahams was deadset on upholding a significant school regulation: no discrimination. She welcomed students from all socio-economic backgrounds in an effort to encourage fairness.

As an instructor, she uses the free-hand cutting technique. It’s affordable and easy for the “ordinary man on the street” and “the student who hasn’t been exposed to geometry and algebra.”

Over the past 33 years, 2,500+ students have been enrolled at Ka-Ju.

Past student, Kasonic Wright, ascribes finding her calling to Mrs Abraham’s generosity.

“I went there [Ka-Ju] just to do fashion designing only. But because I was fast, Mrs Abrahams would let me assist other students. That's when I thought, well, I could actually go be a teacher,” she explained.

Originally from St Elizabeth, Kasonic temporarily relocated to Kingston to attend the Ka-Ju Fashion Institute. She recalled needing a place to stay and told Mrs Abrahams about her circumstance. Living with Mrs Abrahams for some time, Kasonic was able to live out her immediate dreams.

She graduated from Ka-Ju in October 2012 and by 2014, she was enrolled at Church Teachers' College in Mandeville. Today, she teaches clothing and textile at Lewisville High School, St Elizabeth and dedicates most of her time to her students.

Stories like Kasonic’s are bountiful and speak to the kind of impact the seamstress with a dream has had in Jamaica.

For Abrahams, the aim is to make a positive difference in the lives of people, primarily through professionally supported one-on-one relationship. She believes a teacher should, more than anything else, care, in order to provide leadership and set standards of excellence. Compromising her students’ education is not an option.

Ka-Ju Fashion Institute is registered under the Ministry of Education as an independent school and is accredited and certified by the HEART Trust/NSTA’s National Council on Technical and Vocational Education and Training programme.

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