Tower Project's Haggerston Perk café launching pop-up record shop this year

Haggerston Perk café, a social enterprise run by Tower Project, hires young people and adults with learning disabilities and autism, the majority of which have never had a paid job before. This year, Haggerston Perk is getting a pop-up record shop inside the café, which will provide new roles and will "support the staff to gain new skills, knowledge, and experience in the growing vinyl retail sector, increasing career progression opportunities."

To provide the support and training for the additional staff, Haggerston Perk would like individual donations of records but would also like to partner with other vinyl retailers, artists, and distributors to discuss how they can support them in their work to make it sustainable.

Just by receiving two donated records, the social enterprise estimates that it "will generate funding to resource at least an hour of specialised job support and training and take a big step towards the 60 donations needed to cover the support at the shop for a week."

With the donor’s consent, the donations will be labelled with the name/organisation, and will get a shout out on socials. Donors will also receive updates on the achievements of the pop-up shop and will gain exclusive access to events and competitions throughout the year.

Haggerston Perk hopes that the combination of coffee and music will "stimulate employment opportunities for people with learning disabilities in East London", and aims to highlight "the inequality that only 6% of adults with learning disabilities are in paid work, even though the majority of people with learning disabilities want to work and with the right support are amazing employees."