By Avia Ustanny, Freelance Writer
Sophie Barnett
IF, IN the next few days, you receive a personally addressed letter in your mailbox outlining the services of a certain Ryde Star Limited, you will know that Sophie Barnett has come calling.
Another visual clue may be the sight of smartly uniformed "dayworkers" appearing frequently in your neighbourhood.
Ryde Star Limited, the company created by Sophie Barnett, bills itself as the 'clever cleaning company'.
Clever it is, really. The Rydestar system is based on a scheme whereby housekeeping technicians come to the home each weekday for a minimum of two hours each day and 10 hours each week.
On each visit, a different portion of the home is cleaned and "left looking sparkling and sanitised." In practice, the technician works along with the homeowner to give the house that overall look of being cared for every day, plus in-depth attention to any needy area. The service includes washing and ironing.
What's startling about Ryde Star is that it costs no more than the usual "dayworker" service. Ten hours cost $1,200. The Ryde Star programme also includes after-hour care for children, one feature that has been sending nail technician Bernadine Chambers, of Andre's Unisex Salon in Kingston, dizzy with delight.
Bernadine, who uses the service every weekday in two and three-hour blocs, says she can safely leave her children with the technicians for after school care. Barnadine works from nine in the morning 'til seven in the evening each day and needs the assistance. Even more, she needs help with housework which she has no time to do.
The mother is impressed that the technicians turn up in uniform and are so reliable.
"You can leave them in your home and feel safe. I received a proper introduction to them before they came. Ryde Star is the best thing since sliced bread," the resident of Duhaney Park says.
Manager of the Unisex salon, Del Lawson, who also uses the Ryde Star services, uses her 10 hours in two days. The single woman who has no children only uses the service twice per month, but says she finds it invaluable. "I work long hours, sometimes until midnight and I have no time for tidying up," she says.
Who is Sophie Barnett, the woman behind Ryde Star?
Barnett is a returning Jamaican, born to Jamaican parents in London and schooled in that European city. When she came to Jamaica for the first time in 1992, she was struck with the plight of many women who were unemployed and unemployable, either because they had no skills, or because of the areas in which they lived.
Barnett, who has been self- employed in London, wanted to do something about their plight. In the UK, she had successfully operated a home cleaning and child care service and thought the same thing could be done here in the island. She returned to Jamaica in December of 2002 and started doing her research, looking at how home help was being recruited.
"It was being done by word of mouth, and not very effectively," she recalls.
She also noted the common practice of using dayworkers for just one or two days each week. Round-the-clock care for the home was missing.
Barnett, therefore, came up with the idea of the dayworker who would come into the home for a minimum of two hours each day, five hours each week, at the same cost as it would be to hire the usual dayworker for one day.
She started with medium sized and small homes, she said, because there are some houses which are just too big to make use of this arrangement.
She then recruited her workers, using an in-depth screening process. Ready for the market, Sophie has been working with the electoral rolls, visiting an average of 80 homes each day, hand delivering personally-addressed envelopes with information on Ryde Star.
One challenge, she has found since she started, is the saturation of many Kingston homes with household help. Almost everyone, she says, has a helper, a situation which would have been unusual in London where only the wealthy have full-time home help.
Another challenge was the matter of security. In starting, she recalls, security concerns were the biggest issue. People said 'no no, we don't trust these people', she recalls.
But, many have been reassured by the extensive screening process which all applicants have been put through, which included the submission of two professional references with telephone numbers, proof of residence, a picture ID and two interviews. Barnett has also visited their homes to certify their residence and introduce herself to the rest of the family.
Clients who hire the technicians are provided with background information and allowed to interview them before they begin work in their homes.
Enterprising Barnett has started a service which she believes will appeal to Jamaicans of both middle and high income levels.
The service is as inexpensive as it is, because it operates on a very slim profit margin, Barnett states. The majority of the funds go to pay the technicians who earn between $3,500 each week and $4,500 depending on their hours.
Technicians experience ongoing training, some of which will be provided by HEART NTA in the near future.
On the day we visit, Outlook met Angela Martin who was in the middle of her training programme. She told Outlook, "I was taking care of an old man and he died a month ago." Speaking about the Ryde Star programme, she said that the two-hour daily cleaning regime "is a little bit tough but you have to challenge it."
With an overall look of neatness to be achieved and some cleaning to be done every day in only two hours, she will have to be fast and thorough. The 30-year-old mother of two sons is hoping that she will make the grade.
There are currently 24 home technicians working with Ryde Star and, as the demand for the service improves, so will the number, Sophie Barnett says. Eventually, as Kingston homes are saturated, she may move to Portmore and other communities in the island.
