My Community Bristol is a project run by SENDaWelcome. They work with local businesses to be more inclusive, including supporting the community to offer work experience and employment for people with learning disabilities. In this article, we share Jordan’s experience of working for Steph, the owner of Basil’s Café in the Old Library on Muller Road, and how My Community has supported the process.

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When I arrive to meet Jordan, to hear about his experience of volunteering and working at the Old Library’s Café, the community hub on Muller Road is in full swing. A machine pumps iridescent bubbles into the middle of the room, showering the gleeful toddlers nestled on a rug with piles of toys and being serenaded by a playworker with a blow-up saxophone.

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The walls are lined with shelves of books and comfy seats. In the centre is Basil’s Café, where families watch the action unfolding from tables filled with fresh coffee and home cooked food. Grandparents hold babies, mothers breastfeed, and older children spill out onto the patio to race about on trikes or amongst the trees of the garden.

Café owner Steph darts about chatting to the customers, serving food, and clearing plates.

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“It’s a true community space,” she tells me. “Where anyone can come and have a warm cup of coffee and sit here for the afternoon with no pressure. It’s hard to find places like that these days.”

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Putting inclusion at the core of the Old Library’s ethos has meant taking practical action. The management team fundraised for an accessible toilet and added a quieter area of the café for those who need less sensory stimulation; they are now looking at further ways to improve access to their building. As a result, the schedule is full of inclusive events; art classes in the playground, NCT meetings, a Repair Café, police-led community engagement meetings, and on Fridays, The Umbrella Singers—a fully inclusive and accessible choir—meet here.

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“We don’t organise the events,” Steph tells me. “Since the doors opened and we made everyone welcome, so many wonderful things have been sparked off. People use it to do their thing in an affordable, inclusive, accessible way—which makes it possible for as many people in the community as possible to come along.”

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The Old Library reopened as a volunteer-run Community Interest Company (CIC) after standing empty for many years. Steph has volunteered here since 2020, when she moved to the area with a six-week-old baby. Not knowing anyone locally, and with COVID limiting social contact, she found it a space to connect with her community and other new mums. She opened Basil’s Café in January 2024 with the guiding intention of serving the whole community as an inclusive, accessible space.

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Jordan is tired after a busy lunchtime shift of clearing and washing plates. We sit outside, to chat about his experience. Jordan, 32, lives locally at New Chapters House in Lockleaze, which gives him a supported and independent way of life, along with others in the community.

He found out about volunteering after seeing My Community Bristol’s ‘Do You Want to Work?’ booklet. He started at the Buzz Community Garden and when the garden closed, Jordan was keen to stay active in the community, so the My Community team introduced him at the Old Library.

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Steph met Jordan when they both volunteered at a Christmas party in December 2024. She was impressed by his great work ethic and offered him a paid job every Friday clearing plates and washing up.

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The team at My Community Bristol supported Jordan with the practicalities of getting set up to be paid but he organises most of the logistics directly with Steph. He tells us what he enjoys about working with her at the Cafe. 

“It makes me feel good to do something that makes other people feel good,” he says. “I felt quite isolated before I started here, especially in COVID, but in 2023, I began working at the garden and it got better. Now I'm here, and I'm really getting out into the world more.”

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Jordan says that he’s found the whole process of getting a job "really inspiring" and is proud that his attitude has encouraged his housemates at New Chapters House to start volunteering too.

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“I just feel like I'm an inspiration to people, and that has inspired me to do more.”

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Jordan has set his sights on more volunteering, this time at The Vench, an adventure playground in Lockleaze that offers accessible events and activities.

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After her shift, Steph shares her perspective on working with Jordan and the value that he brings. “It’s vital that community spaces are open to everyone” she says. “Getting the chance to see the way other people experience the world is so important. It's good for the children, the customers, and the staff to meet people who are different from them and learn that being part of a community means that we may need to adjust to accommodate other people. That's a valuable thing for everybody.”

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This article is available in Easy Read 

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See what’s on at Basil’s Café at The Old Library https://theoldlibrary.org.uk/basils-community-cafe/