Small Business Spotlight: All Together Edinburgh

Tell us a bit about your business?

All Together Edinburgh is a social enterprise, that provides training opportunities for people with learning disabilities. Training takes place in our Leith Walk based charity shop and the 'trainees' work towards qualifications such as the Ready for Retail Award or Skill Accreditation Programme. They learn work skills, customer care, health and safety, stock and display, using the cash register or cleaning skills and get support to build their confidence and to move on into employment, voluntary work or further education.

The charity shop/training centre has been open for over 9 years and offers quality, preloved, affordable products for the whole community.

What makes your business unique?

All Together Edinburgh was the first of its kind in Scotland and is very unique! It is a charity shop and training centre in one and was set up solely to create training opportunities for people with learning disabilities. The charity shop is an ideal practical, training environment and the income from shop sales is re-invested back into the training project. There is no charge for the training service as costs are paid from the income generated through shop sales.

Describe your typical working day.

A typical day for us is to clean the shop, get tasks ready for the team and welcome our lovely customers so they can shop and have a bit of banter! The trainees/volunteers are supported throughout the day to practice their work skills so they can work towards their qualifications. We thank the team for their hard work and type up their training notes into their training folders

Why Leith?

We wanted to open our charity shop/training centre in Leith because we realised that the Leith community is very passionate about helping people to achieve their goals and really want to do what they can to make someone’s life better and more equal in society.

The Leith community have supported us for nine years and continue to support us by donating goods to the shop on Leith Walk, purchasing items in the shop and by encouraging our trainees during their training programme which helps boost their confidence. They also help us by volunteering their time, by attending our fundraising events/initiatives and by following us on our Facebook/website.

Name three fellow Leith businesses you love to visit.

I like to buy locally and visit Candersons to buy chocolate and sweets for my family and special treats for the trainees and volunteers. The manager, Debbie has helped us with our fundraising efforts and we are very grateful for their continued support.

I visit Edinburgh Community Food online so I can order delicious fruit and veg boxes and wonderful, luxury Christmas hampers. Their click and collect system is very easy to use and they deliver free of charge in Edinburgh. They also offer community groups cooking and food and health sessions on zoom.

I love visiting the Edinburgh Remakery online shop for refurbished computers and electronics I also recently bought gift vouchers for their fabulous repair workshops which are back up and running at their premises. They really care about the community and are helping our trainees/volunteers through the Leith Gives campaign to connect digitally with their, family, friends and support networks by providing refurbished laptops.