Charity

Just one photo taken today, but intentionally so because I felt it was time to return to my favourite series, namely #leithwalkshops, and in this case for the first time with a charity shop.

This is the newly opened Settlement shop towards the top of Leith Walk.

Unusually, I'm going to quote extensively from their mission statement on the Facebook page, because Settlement is an interesting organisation:

"The Edinburgh Settlement is a multipurpose Charitable Organization with a rich history spanning more than 100 years of active local involvement. We are part of the international settlement movement; a global network of social action centres which aims to work closely with local communities, representing and responding to their different needs and aspirations to promote social and environmental welfare and help bring about effective and lasting development for their communities.

Throughout its long history, the Edinburgh settlement has been instrumental in developing many significant initiatives in community welfare, innovations in adult education, support for people with health and other disabilities & problems, community volunteering, and the provision of much needed community resources. We hope to bring the same enthusiasm to our Leith shop!

In late 2010, difficulties forced the Edinburgh University Settlement into financial receivership with the resultant loss of many valuable community projects, such as the settlement's Community Learning Centre and its Stepping Stones art therapy projects, as well as such valuable community resources as the Roxy Art House and the Forest Café.

Through our unique Charity Shop's we hope to continue our positive and forward-looking response to the present challenge. Income from our charity shops enables us to further increase our capacity to develop multi-purpose and multi-disciplinary community programmes."

The whole business of the financial demise of Edinburgh University settlement was a pretty fraught issue.

Anyway, I liked this photo because there is so much going on in it.