City cafe hopes to lead people out of a life of crime
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A new café opening in Inverness could be run by former prisoners, with hopes of reducing re-offending rates in the Highlands.
The Church Street venue called Ar Aite, Gaelic for "meeting place", and aims to rebuild people’s lives after jail, giving them work and a chance to be a part of society.
Organisers would need 50 volunteers in the first year to run the venture and make it financially viable.
Andrew Fowler, from the charity Signpost, which is spearheading the café scheme, said: "We genuinely believe that we will be preparing people for work. That is the accelerator."
The new café is setting up in the now defunct Dunbar Centre drop-in for the elderly.
An opening date will be announced within weeks.
Funding of £30,000 was awarded from the Robertson’s Trust which will pay for a full-time café coordinator and more.
Highland Council, which has donated £10,000, is being approached for match-funding.
In addition, funding for two part-time posts is being sought from Community Job Scotland, which supports disadvantaged people under the age of 29.
The café is being set up to provide a training kitchen and introduce a "grow for your community" scheme.
This will see a bank of outside volunteers growing produce for the café.
Schools, businesses and householders will be encouraged to give their surplus garden space over to the café in a goodwill gesture.
Mr Fowler said the café’s first "brilliant" community grower, Edna Clyne-Rekhy (70), of Burn Road at Burnside in Inverness, was powering on to produce fresh vegetables from a patch in her garden.
She said she was "delighted" to be part of the café venture.
She said: "I’m also going to be doing arts and crafts and different things and I have always loved gardening; my husband and I were olive farmers in Spain."
Mr Fowler said: "The governor of Inverness Prison, Stephen Coyle, is very committed to working with us.
"He’s keen that there is through-care support and he feels that the café would be a great venue to work in with their clients, while they make the transition back to normal life."
He added: "People would know that when they left that prison community there would be a place that they could go where they would be welcome and they would be given an opportunity to help.
"We have to make sure that as a society we take collective responsibility and just realise that we are all human beings. We are all capable of being one or two steps away from catastrophe.
"Everybody deserves a second chance. It’s important that these lines exist."
The café will serve soup, sandwiches and salads and "a quality cup of coffee".
Mr Fowler added: "It’s very much about making it self-sustainable.
"We want to provide a really good food retail experience but we also want to really place the social arm at the heart of things because the café is all about helping people who are disadvantaged or who might be recovering from mental ill health or addiction.
"Those are the people that we want to help to develop skills that can take them into the food service industry which in Inverness is pretty vibrant."
Prison governor Stephen Coyle said: "We are looking forward to developing a partnership for future endeavours."
For more information keep an eye on Signpost’s Facebook page or email alan.fowler@signpost-inc.org
