When Jay met Thomas Finn a year ago, as part of his outreach to provide haircuts and support for people living on the streets, he made him a promise. If Thomas began to sort his life out and clean himself up, he would be trained as a hairdresser and a job would be waiting. This week, Jay made good on that promise.
Thomas has been clean for seven months, has started his barber training and joined the team at the Seaview Street salon. This is not a one-off charity act by the business owner. Jay has made a habit of giving back to his community having overcome many hurdles in his own life before realising his dream of running his own salon.
He has been taking to the streets, chatting and providing haircuts for homeless people for the last four years. The ‘pay it back’ attitude has been helping others to get back on their feet and embark on careers in the industry. Jay, who runs the business alongside his wife Orla, is particularly proud of the transformation shown by his latest recruit from his barbering academy.
“We first met Thomas when he was in the streets of Belfast doing homeless haircuts and we could see he was in a bad way,” said Orla. “He actually told me on that day he didn’t care if he lived or died. I found that extremely sad and it touched something in Jay.
“Thomas came from an abusive background of sexual abuse from his father which resulted in his sister committing suicide while their father was on trial for the abuse for which he went to prison,” s.
