Jon James is 42 years old, has orange hair, arms covered in tattoos, and a nickname that precedes him: ‘The Outback Barber’. He is a barber in Queensland, Australia, and some time ago he took a small plane to Mornington Island, a remote island on the country’s northern coast, where unemployment weighs heavily and the community had just lost several young men to suicide.
He arrived thinking he was only going to cut hair. But when he saw how many people were lining up waiting for a turn, he understood that he could leave behind something that would last longer than a haircut: a trade. That is how the workshop he gave as part of North West Remote Health’s Fade Wellbeing Barbering Program was born. He was surprised by how quickly the participants learned to do perfect fades, almost without help.
Before that island, James had already spent six months traveling around Queensland giving free workshops. And when he finished in Mornington, the organization provided 20 professional barbering kits, so that learning would not remain just a good memory, but become a real way to earn a living.
