Unique employment charity increases workshop space to cope with orders
A County Durham charity that helps people who have struggled to get into work find employment is expanding to cope with future orders.
The Employability Trust has marked its 15th year by taking over a new warehouse near its Peterlee base to cope with growing demand.
Although a charity, the Trust works in the commercial sector to fund its operations and has helped 490 people into work.
It offers outsourcing services to manufacturers and service companies. They then use the Trust when there are peaks in demand, production backlogs or projects that require additional capacity.
The Employment Trust’s workforce – who are referred from JobCentre Plus – then gains real work experience at its warehouse and workshop in Peterlee.
Each member is given chance to become employed full-time by the charity after a trial period.
Many are then headhunted by employers locally once they have gained work experience.
Founder and Chief Executive Bill Marley, who launched the charity in 2011, said he was delighted that increased orders from its biggest client and supporter, Nando’s, was helping the charity grow.
“When I founded The Employability Trust, it was only a dream that we would work with one of the world’s leading restaurant chains,” he said.
“We’ve been helping them for 11 years. Originally, we were restoring outdoor furniture used by a small number of Nando’s restaurants during autumn and winter months.”
But Bill said that once the company saw the Trust team’s quality of work, it asked the Trust to restore and store internal furniture for more restaurants, which this year has risen to 251 outlets.
“This year, more Nando’s restaurants are requesting external furniture refurbishment because our ethos matches Nando’s approach to sustainability and social governance. Along with another customer in direct retail that is expanding, we now need more space,” he added.
“With the Nando’s contract, our team learns a range of skills, from carpentry to understanding inventory and despatch, including forklift training.
“In the past 11 years, we have restored more than 84,000 pieces of furniture for Nando’s. Not only has that given furniture a chance, but the company has also helped us give 490 people from East Durham find work,” he explained.
When he retired from full-time employment, Bill used his pension funds to fund the charity after failing to secure government or local authority funding.
“For me, it is always about helping people,” he explained. “That was what I wanted to do, and I decided that if no one would help, I would do it myself.
“It was a big risk, but the model is now proven. A study covering three years of our activity identified that the Trust’s worked had resulted in £2.2 million in savings in welfare payments.
“Behind those figures are people gaining independence, families benefiting from greater security and employers discovering new talent.”
The Trust is continuing to engage and look for new customers across the region to work as its moves to a new stage of the charity.
Bill explained: “We’re always looking for companies who want to share our ambition to help those in society that are often just seen as a statistic.
“I believe we can help find work for more than 500 people as part of our new strategy, Project 500.
“We also want to broaden the Trust to reach other areas of the North East and to offer experience in other commercial markets, such as construction. Together, businesses will not only benefit from The Employability Trust, but they can also help build the local economy and improve communities.”
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