Help us raise funds to create a vibrant community hub at The Himalaya Centre cafe in Edinburgh.

The Volunteer & Community Hub @ The Himalaya will be a social enterprise cafe and shop on South Clerk Street, Edinburgh. As well as offering delicious homemade food and drink, with eastern flavours, there will be a shop and community space. The Hub will provide work experience to individuals who have found themselves in a situation where they need some extra support. Community groups can use the space to meet, share, and blossom. Volunteers activities will be promoted and supported.

The project is a drawing together of several aspects of our lives. It has developed as an idea to bring together delicious food, gorgeous shopping and the unbelievable experience of trekking the Himalaya. After years of shared experience in these fields we now have the opportunity to grow together and form the basis of an amazing community enterprise. We have been fortunate to be trusted with taking The Himalaya Cafe and Shop on into its next phase of its existence, and for this we thank Yeshi. We have been helped along the way by fantastic customers and friends. Your support has been amazing and has given strong foundations to our new project.

As a team we have genuine passion for the project and for the people we will meet. Future staff and customers will benefit from the community vibes of The Himalaya. We believe that by offering people and groups a space where they can develop and practice skills, share culinary expertise and improve their well being we will be offering them an opportunity for future employment and opportunities to create their own social networks. By helping to fund our project's start up, we really believe that you are investing in something that will make positive impacts on many peoples lives and this will also have a positive impact on the wider community. We will support those in our community who wish to volunteer and travel in the Himalaya. To this end we will work with a local community and school in Nuwakot, Nepal. The plans we have and the positive impact we will have fill us with inspiration for our future with The Himalaya.

To do this we need some investment. We have savings and private investment but also need some extra. £3000 would ensure that we could carry out works and have fabulous equipment when we start which would make our project all the more fantastic. For example, the garden needs clearing, it's a beautiful overgrown mess of thriving brambles at the moment and we want to make a community garden and have space for events.

Our impact...

We will equip people with the skills and confidence to find employment

We will build confidence and promote travel and volunteering as a way to improve esteem. We will foster relations between the communities of The Himalaya Cafe Edinburgh and Suryamati village in Nuwakot, Nepal.

We will encourage community groups to use the cafe spaces as a meeting place and make it affordable for them to do so.

We will support access to the arts through exhibitions, music, spoken word events and hope that the patrons of our cafe get to try them out and enjoy them.

We will make absolutely amazing food and be super friendly to those around us.

We hope that we make The Himalaya a space that people want to come to for a great chai and a place where people feel comfortable about expressing their own culture and finding out about others.

Other ways to help...

If you haven't got any money and you would still like to help then...

Volunteer! Come to the cafe at 20, South Clerk Street, Edinburgh and see what kind of roles we have available which suit the kind of thing you want to do. Alternatively doing some social media wizardry, organising events, teaching at a school in Nepal, that kind of thing, would also be great. There's plenty of opportunity for skill sharing and positive experiences.

Share the fundraiser round your friends

Like our Facebook page Himalaya shop/cafe