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A social project co-produced through public, private and nongovernmental partners to combat homelessness and exclusion, presented at the ESN Co-Production Forum in Lisbon 14-15 November 2019.The project is implemented by CRESCER Association supporting homeless people in Lisbon with the support of the Lisbon City Council Department for Social Rights, and a network of 22 public and private partners.

Transcript:

This video documents the ‘Feeding the Community’ Project implemented by CRESCER Association supporting homeless people in Lisbon with the support of Lisbon City Council Department for Social Rights, and a network of 22 public and private partners.

The project involved launching a new restaurant, UM Restaurante in one of the most expensive parts of Lisbon, where medium-high service is provided by a staff of homeless people. Staff are trained in the restaurant and eventually go on to work in other hotels and restaurants in the city, and more homeless people are brought in to be trained in UM Restaurante.

Americo Nave, Executive Director, Association CRESCER: ‘The CRESCER Association works with homeless people since 2002. What normally happens is people feeding homeless people. And what we propose with this project is that homeless people feed the community, opening a restaurant where people who were homeless now work in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the scullery, and serve fantastic food in the city of Lisbon.’

Chef David Jesus, UM Restaurant: ‘We opened more than a month ago and everything is going well. It’s a social project so we’re not here to make a lot of money. The only condition we have here is that the employees are living in a room or in a shelter.’

Alexandra Peralta, UM Restaurant: ‘The association has been of great help to me. I had been working for six months and couldn’t do it by myself. Very door was closed to me. We do our part by working, and the association helps us by taking many people off the streets. It gives a chance.’

‘Be faithful to yourself. Never change.’

‘You only lose if you give up the fight.’

David Jesus: ‘Now we have a group of fourteen persons and by the end of January this group will go to other hotels and restaurants to for another internship and then we’re going to receive 25 more people.

Americo Nave: ‘We argue that the integration of the most vulnerable groups should be done in urban centres. So, our purpose is to treat people with dignity, and not to create “pity projects”. But to allow them to work at a restaurant where all the service is provided by them, with medium-high service level. In the end, we want to show that these people have the capabilities to work in restaurants where the menu was created by recognised chefs, such as Bruno Bergonse, and they can provide a high-level service in one of Portugal’s most expensive avenues. The public is loving UM Restaurante and the food.‘

This project is implemented by CRESCER Association supporting homeless people in Lisbon with the support of Lisbon City Council Department for Social Rights, and a network of 22 public and private partners.

Co-Production Forum was organised in collaboration with Santa Casa Misericordia de Lisboa, Institute for Social Security and Lisbon City Council.