É UM RESTAURANTE

My name is Americo Nave, I am a clinical psychologist. I have been working with vulnerable groups since 1998 - asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, drug users and homeless people - through the implementation and coordination of community intervention projects. I am the co-founder and Executive Director of CRESCER. CRESCER is a Portuguese NGO that we created in 2001 with a group of psychologists, that promotes the adaptation of responses to the needs of target audiences, implementing innovative projects and doing advocacy work in defense of those same audiences.

É UM RESTAURANTE means "It's a Restaurant" in Portuguese. We created this project because we realized that there was a lack of adapted answers for people living in vulnerable situations to be reintegrated into the labour market.

It is a restaurant located in the heart of Lisbon, with a menu designed by a well-known Chef. But most important of all, it is a social project, that promotes inclusion of people who experienced homelessness. People are trained in social and technical skills and integrated in the restaurant on an on-the-job training, on a rotating basis. After that, they are supported by our teams to integrate the labour market through professional internships in partner restaurants.

We give 75 people per year the opportunity and tools to improve their social conditions. We are proposing a long-lasting change, implemented through an innovative answer that can be replicated. 

After Lisbon City Hall analysis )it was estimated that in 2018 there were 2328 people living in homeless condition in Lisbon. Among them, 361 people without any shelter. In whole Portugal, the numbers raise to 4414 people (OCDE). The homeless situation, besides the harmful consequences in physical and psychological terms, leads to a deterioration of social and professional aptitudes required by society and labour market.Therefore, we strongly believe that it is necessary to create a set of integrative responses for people living in homeless situation, recognizing their past, and looking at their skills, empowering them on the path towards inclusion.

All the people living in the streets need a little bit of support to get out. This project provides the support needed to do so. Through training and employment, we re-integrated people in the labour market and more broadly into the community. The restaurant is the trampoline that allows beneficiaries to recreate social and professional links, and to have the economic resources to pay for a place to stay and for their needs. The project promotes the autonomy of the people we support, which allows a long-term answer.

É UM RESTAURANTE is a social business which main objective is to integrate in the labour market people who have experienced homelessness.

Every year 75 people are selected, divided in groups, to integrate the project through a training program, a tailormade answer created in partnership with Lisbon City Hall, Employment Service and School of Tourism, among other partners.

People learn social and technical skills, and integrate an on-the-job training at É UM RESTAURANTE, where they guarantee the service of a casual fine-dining restaurant. The menu is designed by a well-known Portuguese Chef. This restaurant, open to the public, is located in the heart of Lisbon. During the training, beneficiaries receive a scholarship as well as technical support from the psychologist of the programme in order to create their individual plans for recovery. After the training they go for a 6-month internship at a partner restaurant. Every 3 month a new group is integrated into the project.

In business terms, we expect for this project to be auto-sustainable at the end of year 3, so we can assure a continuity of the project, without relying on funding. 

This project impacts the lives of the participants (people who experienced homeless situation) since it is adapted to their needs. We start by asking them what they need and how the project can help.

We provide support during the whole process, in different areas, such as psychological, housing, food, cloths and any other support they may need. 2 Chefs work with the trainees at the restaurant, not only in technical aspects, but also helping them improve behavior, respecting colleagues, time tables, and takeing responsibilities.

We can verify higher rates of autonomy among the target audience, increasing self-esteem, ameliorated presentation, a more polite interaction with peers, among others. Most of the participants adhere now to social and health existing responses and treat pending issues.

In the first 6 months of the project we have integrated 47 people. 10 people out of this number are ready to integrate the labour market. We have contributed to make national policies on regard of this public evolve, and we will continue to fight for this cause.

We search for new and innovative answers, since all the existing answers for this public do not seem to be working. We promote a humanist approach. 

Through this project we intend to provide opportunities for people who could be considered out of the system. We propose an innovative answer for a critical issue in our community, homelessness situations, that we believe can be eradicated. Some of the people we reintegrate have not worked for a long period, and have lost the reflexes to live in society. The daily support of a case worker/psychologist provide trainees the elements so they can establish their own personal path.

I came up with the idea in 2016, when Lisbon City Hall requested CRESCER to take a space located in the center of Lisbon to serve food for people experiencing homelessness. I explained that was not the kind of activities we could do and propose an alternative. To create a restaurant where people who have experienced homelessness will prepare and serve food for all of us. There they will be trained and guarantee service and kitchen. And there it all started.

I invited to join the project a well-known Portuguese Chef with whom I had worked with before. . He would bring to the project the technical expertise in the restauration sector, and create the concept and the menu. A communication agency joined us in order to create the image and business concept. CRESCER will bring the technical known-how of almost 20 years working with this target audience.

The rest of the partners came smoothly little by little. We count today more than 20 sponsors involved. As I said before, we always assume that it must be the responses to adapt to people and not the opposite. This project is an example of that.

CRESCER has been supporting people experiencing homelessness since 2001. We strongly believe that every person has the right to a home.

In 2013 we have developed the project “E UMA CASA, Lisboa Housing First” to eradicate chronic homelessness situations in the streets of Lisbon. Through all our work with these public, we realized that the existent answers were not adapted to their reality. Even when there where job offers in the market, the conditions did not seem to fit the needs of the people. A lot of the people we accompanied had lost hope after having tried different integration solutions that they could not keep up with. So, we decided that it was time to think out of the box, and design an alternative, adapted and innovative answer that will promote real and long-term social inclusion.

At CRESCER we do communitarian-intervention work, we are close to the people, we work on a trust-based relationship with our publics, to better understand their needs and provide the support they really need. It is this approach that lead us to our answer. It was natural.

At CRESCER we have been working with people experiencing homelessness for several years. Besides the Housing First project described before, we have also 3 outreach teams that provide support in the city of Lisbon, as well as a Drop-In Center, where people come to find a secure space, with psychological as well as material support.

I have put together a multidisciplinary team composed of psychologists, social workers, nurses and doctors. At the beginning we were five, today we are nearly fifty. We work closely with the people in the streets, listening to them and acting through a Harm Reduction intervention method.

We have been in the field since 2001 and we have testimony the implementation of several policies that did not work. Currently there are more than 2000 people experiencing homelessness in the streets of Lisbon. I personally believe that it is possible to revert this situation. I believe that every individual has the right to have access to basic Human Rights, and this includes a home, and is for that right I have been advocating since the creation of CRESCER

We have demonstrated through our projects that we can do better. The Housing First project has a high and promising rate of success. More than 89% of people who integrate the project do not go back to the streets. It means that a real and deep change is possible if we apply the right means. É Um Restaurante is for me a clear example of that.

During the implementation of our project, we faced different challenges. For example, the prejudges that clients would not come to our restaurant because they were afraid of the sanitarian aspect, since we were employing people who used to live in the streets. Also, they did not believe that someone with potential alcohol or drug abuse, could respect a time schedule, authority and a work environment.

Our answer was to strongly support the trainees. To treat them with no difference than any other employee of a restaurant. After all, when a person goes to an interview for a job he is not asked whether he or she has any consumptions. We need to break this stigma. Of course the implementation was not easy. Of course we have had difficult times, but with a great team work we could overcome the difficulties and move forward.

We had to adapt some aspects of our training, we had to be more flexible in certain aspects to cope with difficulties that some of trainees showed. For some of them, it had been more than 10 years since they last had an employment. The support from a social worker/psychologist was essential to achieve this objective. 

At CRESCER we have been advocating since the beginning for the rights of alcohol and drug users. I started in 2001 working in the field with this public, and I have seen in twenty years several public policies being applied that did not work out. We have recently received the announcement for governmental funding for a “Wet House”, a project we have been advocating for since a long time. We will be coordinating a space to treat people in homelessness situation that consume alcohol. This is a real victory, since the traditional shelters do not allow people with consumptions. Strange fact knowing that people living in the streets have comorbidities and most of the time psychological, consumption, poverty variables are interlinked. In this, as in all the projects we develop, we intend to adapt our answer to the people we work with and to their needs.

Recently, we have received a Golden Medal of Honor by Portuguese Government for the work we have been doing for the past 19 years towards Human Rights. It is an incredible recognition, but we believe it is our duty, and we will continue to work to make sure that no-one is left behind.  

This project is a social business implemented by CRESCER which is a Portuguese non-for-profit /charity.

These are some of the characteristics that make this project innovative:

-Differentiating project regard to classic employability projects, designed specifically for homeless people and adapted to the specific needs of this target group. It is our response that adapts to the needs of the target group and not the other way around.

-Involvement of a network of more than 20 partners, consolidated and experienced in their sectors.

-The project already represents a complement to local public policies, as it was designed together with local public authorities to provide an alternative and innovative response to a vulnerable population.

-We designed a tailored-made training, together with Lisbon School of Hospitality and Employment Institute, and duly accredited, which allows not only to provide an adapted response to a target audience in a situation of fragility, but also to give professional recognition of training, by obtaining a diploma.

-Potential for the project to be scalable at the regional and national levels.

We have settled three objectives for this project. They are listed below together with the activities to achieve them:

• Empowering the target group and promoting their professional training
  • To promote, with the target group, the development of individual projects for socio-professional insertion
  • To create a training location in the restaurant industry for the target group
  • To promote the training of target group personal and social skills
  • To develop professional training actions with the target group
• Contribute to the integration of the target group into the labour market
  • To create a restaurant, as a social project, open to the public in the city of Lisbon
  • To promote the training of target group’s personal and social skills adapted to the labour market
  • To promote the development of target group personal and social skills in a professional context
  • To promote the creation of protocols / partnerships that contribute to the labour integration of the target group
  • To promote professional integration of the trainees after the training period
• Contribute to the integration and inclusion of the target group into the community
  • To create a restaurant, as a social project, open to the public in the city of Lisbon;
  • To promote the development of target group personal and social and professional skills;
  • To promote the development of basic and social skills adapted to the labour market;
  • To promote professional integration of the trainees after the training period
  • To promote financial autonomy of the target group
  • To contribute to the housing autonomy of the target group

During the pilot project we verified that all these objectives were reachable and lead to a real change. We have integrated 47 people to the project, gave 100 hours of class training, 700 hours of on-the-job training to each group of trainees, opened a physical restaurant opened to the public, worked with the trainees in their professional and personal projects of life, provided stable housing and social support for our beneficiaries. Our trainees´ situation has improved, they have become autonomous and more self-confident

At date, our project serves 47 people. It shows the number of people that integrated the É UM RESTAURANTE and received training until now.

At the end of year one, we will be serving 75 people. This is our one-year-objective.

In five years, we expect to have reached 375 beneficiaries in total.

This project objective is to integrate in the labour market people who experienced homeless condition. So we expect in five years have improved the lives 375 people that are part of this target public, in the city of Lisbon.

As per our business plan, this social business to be auto-sustainable in 3 years.

Our intention is to monitor and evaluate this first year pilot project so to learn from this first experience and adapt where necessary. After that we intend to share good practices learned.

We want this project to be replicated. For this, we are currently preparing a Manual so that other entities can take as a starting point. We have already received several requests from different charities that wanted to know more about our project.

The training model of the project consists in several steps. There is a class training, followed by a practical training at the restaurant. After that, the trainees that complete all the phases go to internships at partner restaurants.

We believe that we will experience a challenge at this step, once the trainees are out of the restaurant. They will be in a different atmosphere, and it will be important our teams continue to provide close support so trainees can continue to focus on their project of life.

Another barrier would be the economical one.  Restaurants could suffer consequences due to the situation generated by COVID-19.

For the first challenge, we will reinforce our technical team in order to be able to provide the support needed for our trainees. We will evaluate with them case by case the support we provide.

Regarding the economic situation, we evaluate now different methods we have not foreseen at the beginning, such as take away. We should also focus in communication and promotion of the space to attract clients.

We have a network of more than 20 partners associated to this project. Some are financial partners, some others bring to the project their know-how, some support us with material, and some of them, partner restaurants, receive our trainees in internships (last phase of the training programme). We have the support from public and private bodies, national and international. All the partners we establish, provide an added value to the project and are complementary.

In terms of social impact, the main service we provide to our beneficiaries is training and a job. But in parallel, we provide all the support they are lacking and is essential for they integration into the community. We articulate with partner structures to provide answers in terms of housing, food and health, both mental and physical. The main objective being to integrate people in the labour market and consequently into the community.

In terms of revenue, our restaurant is open from Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner. We serve comfort food, with a 25€ average/person. The place can sit 30 people.

In the first 3 years the project will work mainly with the financial support from our partners.

We shall notice that the project has high expenses in Human Resources. This is due to the fact, that our project includes, beyond the normal staff needed in a restaurant, a project manager and a psychologist.

After this 3rd year, we expect the restaurant to be auto sustainable. It will finance itself through its revenues. 

We have raised all the necessary funds for the first year of the project, through grant attributions.

We include among our financial partners: Lisbon City Hall, Social Security, Montepio Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, AGEAS Foundation, Deloitte Portugal, Caixa Geral de Depositos Bank, Wizink Bank, Sic Esperança.

Besides the funding, the restaurant, since it is open to the public, generates revenue.

For now, the revenue we had contributed to cover some expenses. The restaurant was well functioning since October until March, when due to COVID we had to close the doors to the public.

 We expect the project to be auto sustainable after the 3rd year. 

We are looking to raise funds for the 2nd and 3rd year of the project Until now we have raised money on a grant basis. We would like to continue on this basis, and/or with investors. 

Our estimated expenses for 2020 are USD 187 000

I am  applying for The Elevate Prize since I understand it could help the project take another dimension. Me, as well as the organization,  could receive mentoring to improve our model, financing to continue developing our actions, and an international broadcast that could put us in contact with new partners that might be interested in our project. The visibility that the project will bring will contribute also to attract more international clients into our restaurant.