Affinity Sutton was the first real partnership we made back in 2012. We started by running projects on their estates in Manchester and Salford, and through this work they offered us free office accommodation for the next 2.5 yrs. During this time we have developed the Gorton Young Ambassadors project which contributed to them winning a national award.
One Mcr Housing is a merger of Eastlands Homes and City South. We have worked with both housing providers providing youth activities and raising awareness of loan sharks within our communities. Eastlands Homes was our landlord for 18 months.
Stop Loan Sharks is Government project based out of Birmingham that covers England. They approached us in 2012 and commissioned us to work in neighbourhoods of greatest needed, as we had local knowledge and contacts within these areas, as well as staff with great engagement skills. From this original work in Newton Heath, we now run projects all over Greater Manchester when needed.
Not many people know but John Thaw was a Gorton lad and went to Stanley Grove Primary School in Longsight. His classic roles on TV in Inspector Morse and The Sweeney made him a household name. After he died a Trust was set up to help young actors but also kids in Gorton. We have made many short films with young people through their support.
Zurich have been supporting us for several years, ranging from financial support, but also allowing their staff to volunteer to help us, such as, they helped us transform an allotment in Gorton, and a another staff member designed a bespoke database for us to record all our project information.
Access Sport were looking for new partners in Manchester to help the next generation of young people to access quality sports provision. We were an obvious choice as we work with over 1000 young people a year. Access Sport have invested in us, allowed us to provide more sporting activity, up-skill staff and develop a real outcome focused approach.
Working in Gorton, it was obvious that we needed to build a relationship with this school in the heart of the community. We started by running a youth club for pupils and now have staff based within the school ensuring all pupils can achieve at school, but also in life.
We have been working with Adactus Housing for several years involving their tenants, young people and the community at large. We have organised youth activities in local park projects, holiday clubs for primary school children, organised gardening projects on their allotment in Moston and even building a float for Gorton Day Parade.
We knew we were doing things right when the 3 local Universities started to want to work with us and offered us students on placements. We now take students all year round and help them to develop confidence and engagement skills. We even ran a joint project with one Uni with a group of young people from Gorton, which ended with a live drama performance. We are also training student to work on the streets engaging the homeless.
After winning their Community Project of the Year Award, we have supported their Cash4Kids appeal, organised a pantomime trip with donated tickets, taken young people to their studio to be trained as DJs and seen how a radio station works.
Manchester City Council was instrumental in supporting us in developing a great relationship with cedar Mount Academy and offered seed funding for our Friday evening youth club which has been running since 2014. They has also funded other projects and supplied grants, such as, we made a film with young people to explore Hate Crime which was used at the Council’s launch of Hate Crime Awareness Week. We also have 2 council employees on our Board of Trustees.
We have been working with the Virgin Money Lounge in Manchester for a few years. They allow us to use their facilities free of charge, helped us launch our Stay Safe project and in 2016 they picked us as their charity of the year. During school holidays their staff volunteer on some of our projects.
Guinness Housing supported us at the beginning to get our Friday evening youth club started and have more recently commissioned us to work on their Salford estate engaging young people, offering positive activities, and feeding back what their young tenants really think about Guinness and where they live. This will help Guinness to implement a new strategy for the coming decade in Salford.
We are Manchester Pride’s safeguarding service for their Big Weekend in August. They commission us to ensure all young people in the city centre this weekend are safe, regardless if they have been attracted by Mcr Pride or not. Having the city centre’s largest public event commission us to work with them is praise indeed.
BAM Construction are our current landlord and accommodate us for free in the amazing Spinningfields area of Manchester city centre. We have taken several groups of young people to visit their construction sites to understand more about a career in construction and what jobs are available. Through this work they got to know us better, and now support us in any way they can.
St James Place have been supporting us from the beginning, after we bumped into a member of their team at a networking event. From this initial meeting, we developed a great relationship and offered a member of their staff a place on our Board of Trustees who is now the Chair of the charity.