WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT TRAINING PROGRAM

BUILDING SKILLS:

The Creative Reuse Marketplace is a collaborative effort. One of the program’s collaborative partners is Inner City Mission (ICM) which provides shelter, education, and counseling services to homeless children, their parents, and single women. Employment opportunities at the Marketplace will be directed through ICM who will engage and recruit women from their shelter, through a workforce development training program, to the Marketplace. Here women who are chronically unemployed will be taught how to build a recycling, upcycling business. In general, through small business mentoring, women will learn hard skills in sales, accounting, marketing, inventory, software, and business model marketing. Overall, through their work, women will learn to stand tall, find their purpose, and break the cycle of poverty. “When you change a woman’s life, you change her family’s life,” (Women’s Bean Project). 

MENTAL HEALTH:

Anxiety and depression are main contributors to mental health issues across the United States. As such, this program delivers a participatory model of mental health recovery through the development of a collaborative community resource that provides a creative workspace for building confidence, problem-solving skills, focus and comfort; for promoting education and environmental stewardship in order to increase self-worth and empowerment; and through hands-on work experience offering life skills training and future employability. All of which lessen anxiety, stress, frustration and depression and leads to positive reinforcement for women.