Cafe INDIEpendent
About the project
Cafe INDIEpendent is a live music venue, community cafe and social enterprise on Scunthorpe high street, and was introduced to VIY by Music Venue Trust, a charity that acts to protect, secure and improve grassroots music venues at risk across the UK. The focus of the VIY project was to help refurbish the downstairs performance and bar area, involving an all female VIY team of mentors and volunteers, including construction students from Doncaster College.
The project was also visited and filmed by Guy Martin and Channel 4 for Guy’s Building Britain series of short films on All 4 that highlight the UK’s national shortage of building and construction skills.
I'm absolutely stoked with the outcome of the project. The VIY team were terrific - efficient, quality work and all to time. They listened to our needs, worked around us and what we had going on, and ultimately made our venue better. And they engaged young people and gave them experience through the process. If you've got building work that needs doing, then this is a no-brainer.
David Plumtree, Manager of Cafe INDIEpendent
We really need to push more young people to consider the building and construction industry as a career path. We also particularly need to encourage girls, as well as boys, to join the industry. So VIY projects like this one are all about saying to girls that you too can become a painter and decorator or carpenter, for example, and this can really help with meeting the skills gap.
Natasha Clark-Withers, VIY Lead Mentor
