THE founder of a coffee chain is backing an appeal to get a homeless person off Bournemouth’s streets and trained as a barista.

Cemal Ezel set up Change Please, a London-based social enterprise which trains and supports homeless people to work in its coffee outlets.

He is speaking at an event for business start-ups in Bournemouth tomorrow – and an appeal is being launched to help a local person benefit from Change Please.

The initial target is £10,000 to train and support that person for a year, with a secondary target of £50,000 to open a Change Please cafe locally.

Mr Ezel told the Daily Echo: “We’ve got an 82 per cent success rate. It really works. We have the right people to give great training, great support, mental health support. It’s a really well-rounded level of support.”

He is among 17 speakers at StartUp and Scale summit tomorrow, at THIS Workspace in the Daily Echo building.

Organiser Alex Chisnall, a business adviser with Virgin Startup, said: “Having been running live events in Bournemouth for the last two years I was overjoyed to get Cemal to speak. His entrepreneurial journey is one of the runaway success stories of Virgin StartUp, having been mentored personally by both Richard Branson on Necker Island and then Lord Bird, founder of the Big Issue and Sahar Hashemi, founder of Coffee Republic.

“Having worked in central Bournemouth for the last two years and seen the homeless people sleeping rough through all weathers, I wondered if we could leave a legacy from hosting this event. Someone just needs to be offered an opportunity to turn their life around and get back on their feet.”

The person helped would either be supported locally or offered the chance to work in London, where all staff receive the London Living Wage.

“It’s about giving someone that skill and knowledge, support and temporary accommodation – those things would help them back onto their own feet,” said Mr Ezel.

“If they wanted to work in London they’re more than welcome to.”

Among the many helped by Change Please was Adan Abobaker, a former chef who jumped into the Thames in sub-zero temperatures to rescue a young woman who was attempting to end her life.

After receiving the Queen’s Gallantry Medal and finding a home, he found himself on the streets for a second time before being trained as a barista. “He was sitting on the streets on a with a bravery award in his pocket. He was literally a national hero,” said Mr Ezel.

Mr Ezel devised Change Please after an experience travelling in the US, when a stranger told him to do the “rocking chair test” – imagining himself aged 90 thinking about his legacy.

“It’s such a beautiful world to be part of and we don’t get to enjoy it because we’re stuck in a world that restricts us. It’s focused on a society that doesn’t work,” he said.

A proportion of the profits from tomorrow’s event will go to the appeal. Anyone interested in backing it can email alex@startupu.co.uk