A social enterprise is giving unemployed people design and carpentry skills, and winning council contracts for its outdoor furniture
After narrowly escaping an amputation and spending a year laid up, Bedia decided it was time to take a new direction in his life. So he signed up to Furniture on the Street (FoS), a social enterprise in Tower Hamlets, east London, which supplies local authorities, charities and other clients with contemporary-designed pieces of outdoor wooden furniture.
The initiative provides unemployed people of all ages with a one-year course in carpentry, feeds those skills into the business, and runs workshops for young people to learn about the design process.
"My grandad was a carpenter, so I've always had an interest, but I had no qualifications on paper," Bedia says. "For a year, I wasn't able to walk, and for two years I was on crutches. I'm a really active person, so my self-esteem was very low. But the course was really hands-on, and the camaraderie was brilliant."
Bedia got health and safety certificates and a second NVQ on the course and since finishing has set up a business fitting interiors with two friends, and has just finished a long contract.
Fellow trainee Mukesh Patel, 33, was doing odd building jobs when he heard about FoS. He has designed two benches, one of which - the Lucky 7 - has proved a very popular product. "I really enjoyed using tools that I didn't know how to use before," he says.
Thirty-seven trainees have undertaken the course, which was set up in 2005 by Old Ford housing association in the borough, initially to engage the Bangladeshi community. A year later, it was turned into a social enterprise to make it sustainable in the long term and open to anyone.
FoS managers say it is special because it provides customers with a complete community package. The initiative also has an environmental focus, using reclaimed wood to create benches, bins and planters.
"One of the key things as a supplier of contract furniture is that there aren't any who also run youth development schemes and reclaim wood," says Rick Levene, lead designer for FoS. "It's a whole package that is community orientated."
Workshop activities include model-making, teaching basic computer-aided design software skills, and visits to timber yards.
In one project on the Aylesbury estate, in Southwark, south London, trainees worked with eight young people to produce three bright, multi-coloured benches for the estate. After choosing the bench frame, the group worked on the graphic designs that would be painted on to the furniture. The benches were built by the trainees before being painted by the young people.
"The majority of the young people were from what some class as 'hard to reach' - close to exclusion from school or involved in antisocial behaviour," says Nigel Days, a youth officer for Aylesbury's New Deal for Communities programme. "It was a seriously cantankerous group, to say the least. I didn't have much confidence, but it was amazing. They turned up all the time, on time. And the knowledge base they come away with is fantastic."
Leanne Baxter, FoS project manager, says that while their biggest clients have been charities and local authorities - the largest single order, 10 benches, was from Camden council, north London - it would be wrong to attribute this just to goodwill. "We use local labour, our frames are made locally, and we have an environmental focus," she says. "You're not doing us a favour. You get a competitive product."
In the three years that it has been running, Levene says, FoS has grossed over £100,000, and apart from a contribution by Old Ford towards two staff salaries, it is entirely run on profits. Former and current trainees are also paid for their work.
Baxter says that all the trainees have gone on into education, employment or self-employment and one received an offer of a place at university to study furniture design after a tutor saw his bench.
"The workshops give the young people a sense of confidence because some of them have never been given the power or responsibility to make decisions that affect the environment they live in," Baxter says. Old Ford is now considering extending the scheme to fencing and metalwork, and franchising the idea to other community-minded associations.
• furnitureonthestreet.org
• furnitureonthestreet.org
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