First Fruit - Social Enterprise Mark
First Fruit is the First Newham Social Enterprise to be Awarded the Social Enterprise Mark!
First Fruit Warehouse has been granted the Social Enterprise Mark, which identifies them as trading for social and environmental purposes. The Social Enterprise Mark started life as an identifier for Social Enterprises in the South-West. The National Social Enterprise Mark scheme was launched in early 2010. The Mark offers consumers an instantly recognisable logo that represents enterprises working for social and environmental aims, trading to benefit people and the planet.
First Fruit Warehouse joins other ethical businesses that have been recognised by being awarded the Mark such as the Eden Project, Hill Holt Wood, Bristol Wood Recycling Project and the Co-operative Group.
Robert Owusu Director said, “We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Social Enterprise Mark. This consolidates our position as a firm with a genuine social aims. First Fruit’s Primary aim is to equip our employees with the capacity to use all the great resources available in the Olympic Borough of Newham to help them to make the transition from being “disadvantaged to accessing advantage”
Owusu continues, “Some of our employees have been challenged with homelessness and long term unemployment and they really view our organisation as hope for a positive progression away from those circumstances. We realise that it’s more than just putting a person in a job, for us it’s about enabling them to keep a job and become self sustaining. We help our employees to contend with a cocktail of issues such as low literacy levels, poor social skills and inability to make strategic life plans. We help our employees to combat these issues and they also learn how to recycle office furniture so that it is fit for re-use. Some of our employees choose to continue working with us for the good of the environment, despite being fully equipped with skills to work elsewhere and it’s a pleasure to have them all on board”.
Social enterprises are working to make a difference across the UK and beyond, but not enough people know what they are or how they work.
The way forward for First Fruit
James Riley – General Manager said “such an award adds credibility to our growing brand. We feel more confident in promoting our social and environmental aims than ever before. We recognise that as a social firm, its easy to neglect the promotional side of business because we are typically very hands on with our causes. All social firms really need to enhance their awareness if they want to remain in business and in order to support them, we will offer opportunities to promote their services through our forth coming e-newsletter due out in October 2010”.
Exciting new developments for First Fruit
Riley continues “receiving the award comes at an opportune time for us as it co-incides with exciting new developments such as our bespoke Plastic Recycling solutions also to be launched in October 2010. We want to work with local authorities that need to resolve issues that relate to illegal dumping of bulky plastic waste items such as garden furniture. By offering plastic recycling we are further demonstrating that we are a social firm with a total understanding of social, environmental and anti social issues that affect our communities at grass roots level".
If you are interested in the Social Enterprise Mark go to www.socialenterprisemark.org.uk
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