A number of avenues you might explore:
- take classes that teach you software engineering and programming
- take some of the
Java examinations that Sun administers
- become involved in open source projects
The first two these two won't give you commercial experience, but you can put them on your resume to show that you know what you're talking about.
Of course,
you should also be asking yourself: why do you *HAVE* to migrate from a non-development position to a development position? If you actually want to, any of the above should lead you in a direction you want to go anyway. If you don't want to, maybe it's time to start looking for something else.