A Dundee anti-poverty charity will start 2021 with hope for the future as plans have been unveiled for a new food and learning hub.
Signpost International will transform its Whitfield Roundhouse Centre next year, including opening a new café using food that would otherwise have been thrown away.
Charity bosses have been working for the last two years to turn the facility into a Centre for Global Learning but recent funding from local and national donors will allow the major required work.
As well as the café, Signpost will be working with local charities to turn surplus food into nutritious meals which will be distributed to those most in need, via foodbanks and community larders.
From the summer, visiting school and community groups will be able to learn more about sustainable living, both locally and overseas, using virtual reality technology to see food poverty issues facing billions of people across the world.
Jamie Morrison, chief executive of Signpost International, said: “The current pandemic has highlighted the need for strengthened community cohesion and resilience across the globe.
“The vision of the Roundhouse is to provide people with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate these changing, uncertain times and give them the confidence and resources to be able to stand on their own feet.
“As we begin to look forward to 2021 and the future, we want to build back better – to take this opportunity to pause and reflect on what is important.
“The Roundhouse is an embodiment of the resilience and generous heart and spirit which we here in Scotland are famous for.”
The transformation will also create several office units, meeting rooms and hot-desking facilities, which will be offered on flexible terms to other charities and socially conscious organisations.
Local youngsters have already chipped in to help, as part of a partnership between Alexander Community Development and local schools.
The project, set up by local businessman John Alexander as a way to give back to his home city, allows pupils from Dundee secondary schools to learn new trade skills.
Braeview Academy pupils were quick to put what they had learned to good use and got to work re-decorating part of the Roundhouse Centre.
