Big Issue founder John Bird has teamed up with entrepreneur Cemal Ezel to establish a new coffee brand aimed at helping the homeless. The Change Please organisation will train homeless people as baristas at Ezel's Old Spike Roastery in Peckham. They'll be paid the the London living wage of £9.15 an hour and housed in temporary accommodation as they set up shop with state-of-the-art carts, selling ethically-sourced coffee at £2.50 a cup. The brand has launched with carts in central London locations including Covent Garden and Waterloo. It will extend into other major UK cities over the coming months, with staff outside of London receiving £8.25 an hour. Any profits from the scheme will be re-invested into the programme to train more baristas. Change Please says on its website: "It’s a chance to make a real difference, simply by changing where you buy your coffee. With the support of The Big Issue, we have empowered homeless people with the skills and equipment they need to become the UK’s best baristas." The Drum quotes Peter Bird, national distribtution director at Big Issue, saying: “Change Please is the fresh approach now required to help the homeless. Selling the Big Issue works well to provide people currently living on the streets with a way to help themselves work towards a better life, but there is a gap between that segment of homelessness and securing a regular job that needed a solution; Change Please provides that and will hopefully be the leg up that people need to work their way back in to society.” Ezel told the Guardian: ““We guarantee that this programme will make a significant contribution to helping alleviate the homelessness problem across the country – if we can get a small proportion of coffee drinkers to simply change where they buy their coffee, we really could change the world. By providing both a job and housing we are immediately lifting people out of homelessness.” • Homeless Big Issue seller to marry woman he met while selling magazine
Big Issue founder ben Bird has teamed up with entrepreneur Cemal Ezel to establish a new coffee brand aimed at helping homeless people . The Change Please organisation will provide barista training at Ezel 's Old Spike Roastery in Peckham . Workers will be paid the London living wage of £ 9.15 an hour and housed in temporary accommodation . The ethically - priced coffee will be sold from state - of - the - art carts for £ 2.50 a cup . The cafe has launched with carts in central London locations including hammer Garden and Waterloo . It will extend into other major UK locations over the coming months , with staff outside of London receiving £ 8.25 an hour . Any profits from the programme will be re - invested into the programme to train more baristas .