A South Wales charity, which offers disabled and deprived individuals with the abilities and help to entry paid employment, has secured an £828,000 mortgage to buy the location of one in all its social enterprises.
ELITE Supported Employment Company helps tons of of individuals yearly with vocational alternatives, coaching and employment. It does this via quite a lot of initiatives and providers for each people and employers, together with steerage counselling, preparation programs, employment visits and placements, interview preparation, and specialised person-centred evaluation.
The charity, which was based in Llantrisant in 1994, additionally runs three social enterprises that mirror its ethos and values – ELITE Paper Options, ELITE Coaching Options and ELITE Clothes Options. All three not-for-profit organisations empower disabled and deprived individuals to realize worthwhile expertise and expertise via employment, volunteering and coaching alternatives, offering a stepping stone into employment in the local people.
The brand new finance from sustainable financial institution Triodos shall be used to buy the rented property the place ELITE Paper Options relies in Merthyr Tydfil, permitting the broader charity to constantly reinvest in its long-term future, increasing its work to help extra individuals with disabilities, or these at an obstacle.
Established in 2015, ELITE Paper Options presents confidential destruction, archive storage, and doc scanning. It has supported over 500 people into coaching, volunteering and employment because it was based. The enterprise balances its social mission with an environmental one, providing organisations all through Wales efficient recycling options. The brand new finance will enable the organisation to proceed its diversification into cardboard recycling and producing eco-friendly animal bedding.
The charity has plans to grow to be carbon impartial and goals to enhance the vitality effectivity of the property at Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park, in addition to creating its environmental credentials via different initiatives, comparable to producing its personal vitality and switching to electrical automobiles.
Andrea Wayman, ELITE Supported Employment Company’s chief govt officer, commented:
“For almost 30 years, we’ve helped to help individuals throughout Wales to entry significant, paid employment. We will see the massive distinction this makes to particular person’s lives, permitting them to develop in confidence, refine expertise and enhance their CVs.
“This new finance is a catalyst that helps us to develop the providing at one in all our key social enterprises, ELITE Paper Options, in addition to permitting us to have the capital to reinvest in our initiatives and providers, with the purpose of serving to extra individuals and communities throughout Wales.”
ELITE has been recognised by numerous awarding and accredited our bodies for its work, together with reaching Incapacity Assured Chief standing – the very best stage of Incapacity Assured award. Its current initiatives embody working as a part of the PMusic Cymru consortium alongside Merthyr Institute for the Blind and Warwick Music, which goals to supply 1000’s of recycled plastic trombones and recorders to be used by main faculty pupils throughout Wales.
Rob Keegan, enterprise banking regional supervisor for Wales at Triodos Financial institution UK, added:
“As a financial institution centered solely on lending for constructive impression, we’re actually impressed by ELITE’s monitor file, with almost 30 years of creating a distinction in the neighborhood. We’re happy to help the charity with the finance that permits them to take the following steps in sustainable development. That is precisely the type of organisation that Triodos appears to be like to fund.”
The lending was organized by Triodos’s relationship supervisor for Wales, Sarah Johnson. The financial institution was launched to ELITE by Social Funding Cymru, the social funder at Wales Council for Voluntary Motion, the nationwide membership physique for voluntary organisations in Wales.
Alun Jones, head of Social Funding Cymru, stated:
“We strongly imagine within the energy of placing cash to work in our communities. We’ve been lucky to have the ability to help ELITE in a number of methods throughout its development as a enterprise and are happy that the brand new lending from Triodos will allow the organisation to proceed its impactful work.”
ELITE success story: Stuart Bowen
Stuart approached ELITE in 2014 in search of employment help that will accommodate his studying difficulties and anxiousness. The ELITE crew enabled Stuart to expertise work placements in automotive valeting and within the recycling business to spice up his CV and self-confidence. Stuart has since discovered paid employment via ELITE at his native Nando’s in Merthyr Tydfil. Diners and workers have praised his wonderful customer support expertise!
