It’s our tenth birthday! 2021 marks a decade since we first opened our doors to companions here at our Ditchingham community, and we’d love for our supporters, customers, volunteers and companions to all come together for a day of celebrations.
Join us between 10 am and 4 pm on Saturday 30th October as we mark a decade of working together to transform the lives of those who have experienced homelessness. As well as all the brilliant shopping and bargain-hunting you know our Ditchingham site for, we’ll have live music, family fun and games and spoken-word performances.
There will also be the opportunity to hear from Selwyn Image, one of our Trustees and the founder of Emmaus here in the UK. It’s 30 years since Selwyn bought the concept of Emmaus to the UK and since then the movement has spread around the UK, with 28 communities opening in every corner of the country, including here in Norfolk & Waveney.
We are also delighted to say that our on-site cafe, The Orchard Cafe, will be making a very welcome return to our community and will have its formal reopening during our 10th birthday celebrations. Our new Catering Manager and companions will be working hard before the event to make sure we have lots of delicious treats available to buy on the day.
Hope to see you there!
Please note, as we will have Birds of Prey with us for the day, we are not permitting dogs on-site. We ask that visitors please leave dogs at home on this occasion.
Cecile Roberts is the CEO of Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney. Speaking about the 10-year celebrations, she says:
“Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney is a very special place to work. I’m proud to be part of an organisation that has transformed so many lives.
“We could not have achieved any of this without the people who support our work, whether it’s through donating items to our charity shop, shopping with us or volunteering their time to support our companions. They have all helped make an incredible difference to the lives of people who have experienced homelessness.”
The Emmaus movement was brought to the UK in 1991 by Cambridge businessman Selwyn Image. He had volunteered in a night shelter in the early 1990s and concluded that that homeless people didn’t want handouts, they wanted self-respect. Selwyn is now a trustee of Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney and will be speaking at the celebrations on 30th October.
Speaking about the early days of the charity, Selwyn said:
“Matters came to a head for me when I talked to an articulate and intelligent man. His story was a familiar one. Broken marriage, move into digs, redundancy, and drink to anaesthetise the pain and humiliation of life on the street, and the bitter reality of no home no job, no job no home.
“Every attempt I made to be hopeful and positive was shot down with ruthless logic until, in a shameful moment of irritation, I said: ‘What is it you want, then?’ He told me patiently but with an intensity I can still hear: ‘I want to work and belong. I want my self-respect back. I don’t want to queue for handouts or have to beg for food. And I don’t want people to cross the street to avoid me’. At that moment I remembered the Emmaus community in Paris where I had worked as a student 30 years before, and knew we had to try starting one here.
“Today, 75 years after its foundation in France, 30 years here in the UK and ten years here in Norfolk, the unique Emmaus offering of providing meaningful work, a supportive environment and the opportunity to recover self-respect are still as relevant and needed as then.”
