New-U in the Community

Aim

To support young people with complex needs into employment and to help the wider community reuse clothes through our sustainable swap-shop.

New-U's Mission:

To support young adults out of work through flexible work placements in a cashless textile swap-shop which serves the wider community.

New-U's Vision:

Unemployed young people have the chance to succeed and the wider community has a unique opportunity to contribute towards sustainable fashion.

How we operate: 

New-U has a retail outlet in Norwich's Castle Quarter shopping centre where anyone can bring in pre-loved items of clothing and accessories and swap them for something 'new to you.'  Clothes and accessories are swapped for points which people can then spend in store.  We take women's, men's and children's clothing as well as shoes, bags, belts and other accessories.

Why are we needed?

Young people face numerous barriers to accessing employment which has been further exasperated by the pandemic.  Many of their challenges can be overcome with tailored intervention to address their specific needs.  New-U offers just that by providing individualised work placements at our sustainable swap-shop and a mixture of interactive face-to-face/virtual employability workshops to respond to this target audience.  We have worked with young people with low level mental health issues, hidden disabilities, criminal backgrounds and minimal/no previous work history.  Our approach is different for each participant and our success is due to the flexibility and empathy shown to each person which allows them to progress at their own pace.  In 2019 we helped 40 young people to better their lives and move towards work, with 88% reporting a positive outcome.

One client who accessed our virtual employability workshops in the third lockdown in January 2020 said: “the workshops have been really helpful both for my confidence and in terms of job applications - I’ve taken a lot of things into account from these past weeks and am rethinking my approach.” 

One of our work placement participants who is now a regular volunteer and undertaking a training course to be a Teaching Assistant said: “Working with New-U has helped boost my confidence by providing me with the opportunity to help in a retail environment. They also provided workshops to help with writing a CV, searching for jobs and managing finances. Since engaging with New-U I have gained some experience working in an environment I previously wasn't comfortable with and found that I enjoy some aspects of it.  The staff that I've worked with are very kind, friendly and supportive. I enjoy being in the shop and working as part of the team and I always feel as if I'm welcome there.” 

Vulnerable young people will continue to need our support as high unemployment levels and economic uncertainty will persists.  We know there are many more young people who need our help as we emerge from the long term effects of the pandemic. 

How do we help the environment?

Between Jan-Dec 2019 New-U swapped over 30,000 items of clothing equating to a saving on the equivalent of newly manufactured and transported items of 9 billion litres of water and 6 million kg of CO2.  From Nov 2019 to March 2020 the number of swaps in our store increased by approximately 50%.  We anticipated this growth would continue throughout 2020 resulting in a minimum of 50% higher turnover were it not for the pandemic.  Since April 12th 2021, we re-opened our doors and we want to reach out to more young people so that we can educate them on the benefits of swapping instead of shopping.

Our plans for the future

New-U has secured an additional unit within the shopping centre we currently occupy which triples our space.   We have aspirations to utilise this additional unit to offer innovative ways to engage with young people and members of the public.  We envisage running community workshops from this space for people who want to learn how to mend, make and upcycle clothes from the large amount of textiles we get donated.  Working with businesses and educational facilities, we want to teach people basic sewing skills and techniques to make items wearable again.  The additional unit previously operated as an “Honesty Library” where members of the public could swap books at no cost.  It is our aim to expand on this and branch out into the swapping of board games and DVDs.  

This additional unit will radically enhance our ability to support more unemployed young people than we currently have capacity for in the shop and be transformational in the ability to try new initiatives to secure our long-term future.  We want the venue to become a renowned community space where young people can learn skills from older generations and socialise in a safe and welcoming environment.

How will your money support us?

We need £240 to buy a smart phone on contract to enable us to effectively market to and engage with young people.  This purchase will enable us to:

• Expand our work within the wider community by collaborating with local schools/sixth form colleges.  
• Deliver an online marketing strategy and utilise social media to generate a stronger web presence to reach more young people.  
• Broaden our work within the business community to participate in workshops and employability sessions e.g. involving local employers with mock interviews for young people.
• Engage with groups and facilitators to run a portfolio of workshops to including upcycling/mending/making clothes with inter-generational groups in the community.

And finally .... I want to visit your swap-shop, how exactly does it work?

1) Customers bring in up to 10 quality, undamaged, clean items (per day) which are swapped for swap tokens.  E.g. a Next dress would be exchanged for 8 tokens.

2) Browse our rails of colour coordinated clothes and accessories and choose items to spend your 'points' on.  

3) Tokens have no expiry date and change is given in the form of tokens.

4) People in need of clothing without anything to swap are given points or clothes gifted by our wonderful customers.  We work with Norwich HMP, Norwich Chaplaincy and 

AND ..... we now offer a 50:50 service where New-U sells quality items online with a high value on the customers behalf.  50% of the proceeds go to our charity and 50% goes back to the customer, win win! 

We want to say a massive THANK YOU for any support you are able to provide to help us deliver our vital work in the Norwich community.

Please donate £1, £5, £20 or whatever you can spare.

THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!

This project successfully funded on 7th December 2021