Emmaus in the UK

Based on an Interview with Sue Taylor President of Emmaus UK and National delegate for UK at Emmaus Europe’s regional Council.

Can you tell us more about the beginnings of Emmaus in the UK?

In the late 80, in Cambridge, some volunteers distributed midnight soup to street people when one of them cried “We don’t need food, we need work.” One of these volunteers, Selwyn Image, suddenly remembered the 60’s and his several-month stay as a volunteer at the Emmaus Neuilly-Plaisance community in France. He made contact with Emmaus International and launched the first ragpickers community in Cambridge in 1991.

Today most communities offer between 20 and 40 places for people to live. No two Emmaus communities are the same – each has its own individual personality, providing a set of services that meet the needs of its local area. Each one has at least one shop or social enterprise, with many running successful cafés, shops, gardening projects and removal companies. Together, they work to overcome homelessness and social exclusion while using the voice of Emmaus to achieve social change.

In UK Emmaus represents a different way to fight against homelessness, please tell us more.

Often, the view people have of someone experiencing homelessness in the UK is of a person sleeping in a shop doorway or on a park bench, but there are also huge numbers of people staying with friends or sofa-surfing. This is the side of homelessness in the UK we might not see, but it can have just as devastating an impact on the lives of the people going through it.

Much of the support that is available is only able to provide a bed for the night and a hot meal, but the next morning they are back on the streets again. This doesn’t necessarily give the individual the opportunity to address the root cause of their homelessness and find a long-term way to overcome it.

This is where Emmaus in the UK is different from other support providers with our unique model offering a home as well as meaningful work in our social enterprises. This opportunity, to become part of a community and make a contribution to it, plays an important role in restoring self-esteem and helping companions to find a way to overcome homelessness in the long term. Our social enterprises are an integral part of community life and help us to generate the income that will ultimately make each of our communities self-sustaining, something every community is working towards. But for the moment our activity is also supported by our local authorities paying towards our companions housing costs while they live within our community and by private donors. Our national organisation is an essential support for fundraising and communication.

What are the main business activities of Emmaus in the UK?

The main business activity for Emmaus communities is collecting donated furniture and household goods and selling them in our shops. Some items are refurbished or, in the case of electrical items, PAT tested for safety. Our research shows that 79% of companions who have lived at Emmaus for a few months say that working and having something to do every day has been the most beneficial part of their experience.

The backbone of Emmaus social enterprise in the UK is the sale of second hand furniture but we also operate cafés, house clearance businesses, gardening projects and clothing shops. Communities and groups also operate bulky waste collection services or provide outreach support contracts with their local authorities. Many Emmaus communities also “upcycle” old furniture, re-painting and re-upholstering it to give it a new lease of life before it is sold on. This gives Emmaus companions the opportunity to gain new skills or use their existing creative flair to bring something back into use.

What is you approach of companion training and development?

During their time living in an Emmaus community, companions are encouraged to undertake training and wellbeing activities for their personal and professional development. Emmaus supports companions in pursuing their goals; holistically and financially. Last year, Emmaus companions were supported to complete 1850 training courses. The types of activities can include formal courses and qualifications, training, sporting activities, visits to other Emmaus communities in the UK and abroad, etc.

These opportunities can help companions to develop new skills (or build on existing ones), boost their confidence, improve mental and/or physical health and wellbeing, and increase employability. Recent achievements include companions learning to drive, gaining a qualification in upholstery, qualifications in furniture making, a forklift truck licence, visits to overseas communities, a baking course, horse riding lessons, and many more.

News United Kingdom

Coronavirus strengthens case for new EU textile laws

65 civil society groups publish joint vision.

As the European Commission is poised to start developing a new ‘comprehensive strategy for textiles’ in the coming months, Emmaus Europe and a group of more than 60 civil society organisations have set out their vision for the global Textile, Garments, Leather and Footwear (TGLF) sector.

We are calling on the European Commission, MEPs, and EU governments to back an ambitious strategy that will kick-start a global re-design of the textile industry’s broken business model for the post-coronavirus world.

The TGLF sector has long been characterised by labour rights and human rights abuses along with the immense pressure it exerts on our environment and climate.

The European Union has committed to create a strategy for the textiles sector that aims to address environmental sustainability and human rights issues.

Our proposal for a comprehensive EU Textile Strategy contains recommendations in this objective, including:

Ensure companies are legally obligated to take responsibility for not only their own activities but their whole supply chain by applying an EU due diligence law across all sectors, including specific requirements for the TGLF sector. Signing a multi-stakeholder partnership should not exempt business from responsibility.
Stricter environmental rules that cover how textile products sold in the EU are designed and produced, legal and financial responsibility on producers for when their products become waste and a reuse policy that involve the social and solidarity economy actors.
Ensuring brands and retailers are legally obliged to honour contracts and end the culture of unfair purchasing practices that gives them impunity to cancel orders without honouring payments – leaving workers without pay and a wasteful pile up of unsellable products.
Make governance reforms and better law enforcement in producing countries part of the solution to sustainability issues faced in the TGLF value chains.
Through trade policy, use EU market power to leverage sustainable production practices in the TGLF industry.

Circular economy / The environment European Union News

Covid-19: Let’s shelter the exiles instead of locking them up at the borders

Emmaus Europe and the other members of the Migreurop network request the closure of the Greek hotspots.

In a press release dated April 2, Migreurop members denounce the inhuman conditions in which exiles are detained in the european “sorting camps” on the Greek islands.

An animated film was produced to explain the mechanisms at work in European « hotspot » policy, to denounce their inhumanity and to ask for their cessation.

Defending human rights / Migration European Union News

Call on the European Council for the protection of the most vulnerable against Covid-19

Emmaus Europe and the other members of EAPN (European Anti-Poverty Network) call on European leaders to put a clear emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable from Covid-19 in a letter to the European Council of March 26 2020.

EAPN’s members statement sets out clearly the groups which are most at risk during this crisis (people facing poverty in low paid, precarious jobs and the unemployed, particularly households with children, older people, the sick, persons with disabilities, homeless people and migrants) and the clear socio-economic impacts they will face – severe loss of income, increased social isolation, and for homeless people, increased exposure to the virus because of a lack of space to practise social distancing, and operations providing food and support to other vulnerable groups having been forced to close throughout Europe.

We share 4 immediate priorities for Member States:

Urgent and coordinated health action, focusing on protecting the most vulnerable
Urgent action to protect workers and ensure adequate income for all, including financial support to keep people in their jobs, with guaranteed income, increased minimum income support to address additional costs, guaranteed income support to self-employed or those in atypical work who are losing income due to the crisis
Urgent action to protect people at risk of poverty, including suspension on evictions due to non-payment of rents and mortgages, supporting payment of energy bills, and continued free provision of school meals for those who need it.
Actions to mitigate the social impact of containment measures on social isolation and loneliness, including urgent support to social NGOs who provide care and support services, and setting up of nationwide helplines for social and psychological support to address an increased risk of domestic violence and abuse, especially against women, under quarantine conditions

A way out of the crisis towards a social Europe:

We also ask to consider a way out of the crisis different from that of 2008 where millions had been invested to bail out the banks without taking into account the crisis impact on the poorest.

Only countries with strong, universal public health care systems and strong social protection systems (including and minimum income schemes) can deal with such a crisis

That’s why we call on members of the EU Council to agree to use EU and Member State funds to launch a massive public investment initiative, on the lines of the Marshall Plan to protect people experiencing poverty, strengthen national public health and social protection systems and support the economy through this crisis and build the new Europe.

The burden to finance these initiatives must fall mainly on the wealthy, reducing inequality between the 1% and the 99%. Now is the time to increase progressivity in tax systems, support the EU corporation tax proposal, move forward on an EU Financial Transactions Tax, close loop holes on tax havens and support a wealth tax.

European Union News Tackling Poverty / Solidarity