Our long read on the Food Punks project and the situation leading up to yesterday's protest. The founding staff team have been made redundant from their permanent contracts and want more answers.
What a great article, thanks Peeblean, v well and expressed .
A few things perhaps stand out with this charity:
1. Poor business plan to anticipate how it was going to pan out in a worthwhile project.
2. Lack of compassion and communication for the vulnerable young adults involved who were meant to be helped.
3. So much support in the local community not taken forward to make it work by TYA
4. Loosing sight of one of their core objectives (which gets funding!) to help young adults into the work place and build their skills.
5. Disconnect between Trustees/Manager with the pizza enterprise to understand and continue to make it a positive success story rather than it spiralling out of control to upset so many in the community and esp the (former) hard working staff.
Thanks for gathering all sides of this very important story and laying it out so clearly. Hopefully these incredible young people will get some answers now. There is a huge amount of support for them and this project in local business and wider community.
One can’t help but wonder if it had been open and trading more especially in the evenings and at weekends whether the turnover would have been such that it would have operated at a profit and been sustainable. I feel so sorry for the young people let down in all this. To have been given hope and purpose and then so harshly dumped- if anything this will exacerbate the challenges these young people have been seeking to overcome!
While it is obvious unfortunate that some young people are now losing their jobs, I have to question the amount of people employed to run a small pizza shop that is open only three half days per week?
My understanding when this project was first publicised, was that its primary purpose was to provide training and experience to young people, who might ordinarily struggle to find a job, thereby enabling them to apply for jobs within the catering industry. Not to actually employ all these young people in the shop, without taking into account how it would be financially viable.
It’s hardly surprising, that now the business is not sustainable in its current format. From reading the story, sadly, It would appear that someone has been a bit overly enthusiastic when it came to handing out employment contracts.
What a great article, thanks Peeblean, v well and expressed .
A few things perhaps stand out with this charity:
1. Poor business plan to anticipate how it was going to pan out in a worthwhile project.
2. Lack of compassion and communication for the vulnerable young adults involved who were meant to be helped.
3. So much support in the local community not taken forward to make it work by TYA
4. Loosing sight of one of their core objectives (which gets funding!) to help young adults into the work place and build their skills.
5. Disconnect between Trustees/Manager with the pizza enterprise to understand and continue to make it a positive success story rather than it spiralling out of control to upset so many in the community and esp the (former) hard working staff.
6. So what next for how TYA is being run?
Thanks for gathering all sides of this very important story and laying it out so clearly. Hopefully these incredible young people will get some answers now. There is a huge amount of support for them and this project in local business and wider community.
One can’t help but wonder if it had been open and trading more especially in the evenings and at weekends whether the turnover would have been such that it would have operated at a profit and been sustainable. I feel so sorry for the young people let down in all this. To have been given hope and purpose and then so harshly dumped- if anything this will exacerbate the challenges these young people have been seeking to overcome!
While it is obvious unfortunate that some young people are now losing their jobs, I have to question the amount of people employed to run a small pizza shop that is open only three half days per week?
My understanding when this project was first publicised, was that its primary purpose was to provide training and experience to young people, who might ordinarily struggle to find a job, thereby enabling them to apply for jobs within the catering industry. Not to actually employ all these young people in the shop, without taking into account how it would be financially viable.
It’s hardly surprising, that now the business is not sustainable in its current format. From reading the story, sadly, It would appear that someone has been a bit overly enthusiastic when it came to handing out employment contracts.