Thank you to everyone who joined us on Saturday to celebrate 10 years of supporting people to rebuild their lives after experiencing homelessness.
To mark 10 years since Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney opened its doors to people experiencing homelessness, we hosted a day of family fun, live entertainment, shopping and more at our Ditchingham community on Saturday 30th October.
Visitors also got to enjoy Bird of Prey demonstrations by Norfolk Hawk Walks, live entertainment from bands Deeper Cut & Ukes of Southwold, singing by Young Atlantis, and spoken-word performances from poet and Emmaus Support Worker Seamus Fox. Guests also got to see inside the Orchard Forge, recently featured on an episode of BBC Countryfile, with the team from Kingdom Forge helping throughout the day.
We were also incredibly excited to reopen our onsite cafe, The Old Orchard Cafe, which had gone through a make-over and has a fantastic new menu. The cafe was officially reopened by one of our customers, Coral, who has been coming to see on an almost weekly basis for the last ten years.
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 that 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 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.”
