A fashion show, music, dancing and stalls at the Fashion-Easter event, organised by Rebuild with Hope and The Brick, held at Rebuild With Hope shop and in the shopping centre, The Grand Arcade, Wigan.
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00:00 My name's Josh, I'm the Digital Inclusion and Projects Lead for Rebuild with Hope.
00:05 We're currently at Debenhams store in Wigan.
00:08 Well, it used to be Debenhams, it's now a store in the Grand Arcade.
00:11 For Fashionista, which is a fashion event that we're putting on to welcome in the community.
00:18 It's a free event for all to enjoy.
00:20 And yeah, it's just about community cohesion, bringing people together, having a bit of fun,
00:25 and providing a few prizes and a few smiles for people, hopefully.
00:29 So, today we've got quite a few events on.
00:31 We've got More Than Words and Dancepiration, which are a dance group.
00:35 We've got John Norcott and Mike Stewart, who are doing the compo and DJ for us.
00:41 John is a singer, a very good wedding singer, look him up.
00:45 And Mike Stewart, the magician, also an excellent professional.
00:49 So those guys are rocking the stage for us.
00:52 We've got a few vocalists on the stage as well.
00:55 We've got a vocalist group, we've got some dramatic performances from the music project, TMP College.
01:01 We've got Wigan and Leigh College providing vocalists, DJs from the colleges.
01:06 We've got pop-up shops, Tombola, Raffle, File and Polish Station.
01:13 We've got it all, there's a bit of everything for everyone.
01:15 Oh, and don't forget the mocktails, free mocktails all around as well.
01:18 I'm Adrian Potts, I'm a founding trustee of Rebuild With Hope Foundation.
01:23 Really the foundation grew out of a social enterprise that I was running inside prisons.
01:29 I wanted to offer something that was post-release, because those guys need more help when they come out than they do inside.
01:36 And the level of public ignorance about the prison system and how the prisons operate is incredible.
01:43 So we're trying to kind of re-educate a little bit to say that actually there's a lot of wasted potential in prisons.
01:49 And that we need to develop that to reduce victims and to reduce crime.
01:54 So the core essence of that was why we originally set up.
01:58 But since then, Louise Atherton, who's the CEO of the foundation and who founded it with me,
02:04 has really extended it into working with long-term unemployed and people with difficulties finding work.
02:11 We're majoring in the local community and since August 23 we've provided 89 employment opportunities in that short space of time.
02:20 We've increased the footfall in Wigan, never mind the footfall in the shopping centre.
02:25 All the other retailers in this centre are up at least 30-40%.
02:29 And I know that they had their best ever Christmas last year because we're here.
02:33 And we're not here for long because ultimately we're going to have to give up the Debenhams.
02:38 So we're moving to the TK Maxx store in the same shopping centre, which is OK.
02:44 It means that we still have a presence.
02:46 And being in Wigan is very important. Louise, our Chief Executive, is from Wigan.
02:50 And she's a rugby league legend in Wigan and she's generally a legend anyway.
02:56 So we're very happy with how it's going.
02:58 We're expanding into working in Wrexham.
03:01 We're taking over the old M&S in Wrexham.
03:03 And we're looking at other opportunities in the Greater Manchester area.