New social enterprise cafe set for grand opening
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A QUIRKY café that could be run by former prisoners in an attempt to reduce re-offending rates is opening in Inverness this week.
The venue at 86 Church Street called Ar n-Àite, which translates to Our Place, will be officially opened by Inverness MP Drew Hendry at noon on Thursday.
It aims to ‘rebuild’ people’s lives after jail, giving them work and a chance to be a part of society.
More than 50 volunteers are needed 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 building previously home to the now defunct Dunbar drop-in centre for the elderly.
Funding of £30,000 was awarded from the Robertson’s Trust which will pay for a full-time café coordinator.
Highland Council has donated £10,000 up to this stage in the scheme.
In addition, funding for two part-time posts is being sought from Community Job Scotland, which supports disadvantaged young people.
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.
The charity’s chief officer June MacLeod said it was an exciting project to be involved with.
She added: "We see this as a real opportunity to benefit and provide support to the vulnerable and disadvantaged in our community and we are looking forward to partnership working with the organisations that have helped to get this far."
