Great news for Poole Remploy Factory
August 20, 2009 10:05 AM
Annette at the Rempoly Factory in Poole
Remploy, the UK's leading provider of specialist employment services for people with disabilities and health conditions, is today introducing a new business model to forge closer links with local communities and win new business.
Poole is one of only five factories in different parts of the country to create a new community resource providing direct employment and wider learning and development opportunities for people who are out of work.
In the first example of the Social Enterprise model in action, fashion designer Natasha Postill is taking space in Remploy's Poole factory to develop her Beau-Couture range of womenswear and lingerie.
Tim Matthews, Remploy Chief Executive, said: "This is an important initiative in developing a more positive and modern role for some of our smaller sites. It also will enable us to evaluate how different approaches can work well across these five quite distinctive sites."
Remploy's national network of 54 factories, which employs more than 3,000 disabled people, is increasingly being used to train and develop the skills of its employees and of unemployed people who are being supported into a job by Remploy.
Natasha, aged 23, said: "It is my aim to support local industry. I think it is important for the consumer to know where their clothes come from, and raise awareness of the welfare for workers.
"Poole is built on industry and I knew if I searched hard enough I would find a local factory that had a history with textiles. I found Remploy, formerly working on lifeboat jackets, and after discussions with the team, I recognised the transferable skill they had and knew that with hard work and further training the staff would be able to produce high quality Beau-Couture collections.
Annette Brooke said "Only last year some people were suggesting that Remploy would be closed by Christmas 2008. It has been an extremely hard time for all but it has certainly paid off now that we have reached this point.
"It is an occasion for great celebration that Remploy has selected the Poole site as a pilot for its social enterprise model. Natasha Postill's amazing talent and support for people with disabilities has provided a fantastic opportunity for Poole Remploy workers. The factory is going to need more support from local businesses who might supply work and surely it is time that Poole Borough Council did more to help them."
Notes
• Remploy is the UK's leading provider of specialist employment services to people who experience complex barriers to work
• Remploy Aberdeen which employs 26 disabled people, does sewing for the oil related industry, assembles Rubber connectors for a local business Rubberatkins and does fulfilment work for the National Osteoporosis Society
• Last year Remploy found jobs in mainstream employment for more than 7,500 people with a range of physical, sensory and mental disabilities.
• By 2012 Remploy will be finding 20,000 jobs each year for people with disabilities and health conditions
• Remploy Poole, which employs 18 disabled people, opened in 1949. It is a local public sales site but has very little work at the moment
• Natasha has lived in Poole, Dorset most of her life graduated in 2007 with a First Class BA (Hons) Fashion Studies degree from the Arts University College at Bournemouth
• Beau-Couture is the newly established womenswear and lingerie label of fashion of designer Natasha Postill
• Beau-Couture simply translates, 'Beautiful Sewing', encompassing notions of hand crafted details and high quality
• Beau-Couture primarily researches into UK heritage, discovering traditional textile skills, looking to the landscape, agriculture and surviving textile industry
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