Black History Month 2023
We believe that employment is the most sustainable solution to homelessness, and by providing barista training, we equip individuals with valuable skills for the coffee and hospitality sector.
At Change Please we collaborate with our wholesale clients to create employment opportunities for our graduates. This helps qualified baristas find jobs and work towards stable housing.
Change Please recognises the increasing numbers of homelessness among ethnic groups, particularly affecting Black communities, and the racial abuse and additional challenges facing Black people sleeping rough on the streets.
We aim to raise awareness of this during Black History Month by sharing information and statistics, amplifying the Black voices of our trainees, and educating our clients and partners that the staggering disparity of both poverty and homelessness strongly correlates with race.
Our intention at Change Please is to try and level the playing field for our Black trainees, providing specialty coffee training, paid work experience, employability workshops, a qualification, and an introduction to some of the biggest food and beverage organisations in the UK. We are actively working to understand the demographics of our service users better and have introduced a Diversity and Inclusion questionnaire for trainees to complete during onboarding this ensures our training program is inclusive and supports all ethnicities.
When assisting employment partners with recruitment we review their processes for discrimination and biases. Volunteers attend our employability workshops are help with writing CV's and preparing for interviews.
There is a lack of Black people amongst our volunteer community which are going to address because we appreciate the importance of visibility and representation, we will run targeted campaigns to attract more recruits from Black communities.
In celebration of Black History Month, Change Please invites staff members to share their personal experiences and connections to Black history. We have also recommended 38 books recognising the contributions of Black people worldwide.
We are hosting two events at our Regents Place retail site to celebrate Black History Month, showcasing the importance of diversity and inclusion. The first is being hosted by BMT culture hub and will take place on 13th October at 7 pm, our staff and trainees have been invited. The second is hosted by British Land and will take place on 26th October from the afternoon until evening.