Today we have launched our new upgraded shop. Designed and created exclusively for Prespect by Bee.
Our product range is unique, quirky and (true to our ethos) getting a new artist exposure and confidence to strike out on her own. If it looks familiar, Bee is the person responsible for our newly designed website and most of our later instagrams.
We have mugs and face-masks, backpacks and hoodies and our range will be growing every week. We will also soon be adding another designer and artist to the range.
To celebrate the launch we are offering a 10% discount!
Could it get any better?
Yes it can.
Because this is not just a shop for profit. You might be wondering why we, an employment training social enterprise, are opening a shop?
Well, even before Covid-19, it was clear that there was a need for some of our participants to receive extra support outside of coaching.
We have had members who's 5 year old child was walking around town with holes in their shoes;
People with no food because the Foreign Office has made a 'mistake' and they have had no recourse to public funds for months;
Families literally a day away from being on the streets.
With these situations, how can you focus on the weeks & months of preparation and development it can take to be ready to ace a professional level interview? How can you concentrate when you have a 3 year old and two teenage children in a tiny 2 bed temporary flat?
Once Covid hit there were times we had to act fast. In the middle of the lockdown, we learnt of a woman in Glasgow who suffered severe burns in a kitchen accident and was rushed to hospital leaving her five children, who spoke no English, too traumatised and frightened to leave their flat. We arranged emergency halal food to be delivered the next day while liaising with local charities to continue with long term help.
We were able to do this because in the chaos of the first weeks of Lockdown we were in the lucky position of suddenly having un-allocatable funds - and funding providers who encouraged us to react quickly to the changing situation. However, our funding doesn't cover these situations under normal circumstances, and we still need the resources to help those participants who do need some extra support.
Also, we have a small training budget which we would like to supplement to offer more thorough training where it would help the candidates.
To do well in an interview requires self-confidence and belief. It requires a positive outlook, an expectation of success. The capacity to bounce back if - this time - the job wasn't offered. Many of our participants have all their material needs and look to us only to be able to progress fairly in their chosen careers. But all of our participants have to grow from the same starting point. So we will continue to provide food or clothing or pay for an online course that gives them that extra advantage to make the difference.
Buying from our shop means:
1 - You get products with bespoke artwork only available on our site.
2 - After printing profits are shared equitably (i.e. 50%) with the artist, allowing them to start breaking out into running their own business.
3 - All of our share of profit will be used to help our participants to achieve the best chance of success in the job market so that they can contribute even more to our society. None of it will be used for salaries or other business costs as we are already funded for this.
4 - As well as food and emergencies, we can use the income for high quality online courses tailored to their job requirements.
5 - There will be an almost constant change in product range as we get more artwork.
6 - More artists will be joining us soon so that you get even more.
The shop is always open for business at https://www.prespect.co.uk/shop
Help us hit our target of 1000 sales so that next year we can help guide more people into fulfilling careers.
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