Between March and September 2023 grassroots organisations from across the City of Manchester – Manchester Central Foodbank, Barlow Moor Community Association, and The Dandelion Community – will be coordinating a city-wide project: “Building An Anti-Poverty Community”, in partnership with Something To Aim For and Get It Done, supported by UKRI-Innovate UK.
Conversations and Workshops
Over the coming weeks, project managers Toni Toner and Holly Stratton will be coordinating a series of local conversations in each part of the city.
Bringing together local services and organisations across all sectors, we will identify community priorities, evaluate impact of existing provision and support community clusters (neighbourhoods) on partnership development.
City-wide Summit: 6th July 2023
On Thursday 6th July we will bring our networks together for Manchester’s first grassroots led Anti-Poverty Summit.
We want to welcome everyone from across Manchester – grassroots and community groups, service providers and professionals, and residents and service users – to join us for an interactive and engaging afternoon of sharing the great work being done in the city and to build new and strong relationships.
We will be developing together a collective vision for anti-poverty communities, a set of anti-poverty principles and areas for future partnerships.
Where: Methodist Central Hall
When: Thursday 6 July, 13:00-16:00
Follow this link to find out more and sign up – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/anti-poverty-community-summit-tickets-641173054867
Building a Grassroots Anti-Poverty Collective
Following our summit we will be bringing grassroots organisations from across the city together to create a collective to convene neighbourhood anti-poverty partnerships and support the development of local-led and community-led strategies and improved provision for our residents.
Grassroots partners wanting to be involved can collaborate with us to submit a community-led bid to UKRI for 3 years of funding for community projects and partnerships.
Why we want to create Anti-Poverty Communities?
- We have found that working in this way reduces duplication, reaches more people, shares resources and increases knowledge of service provision across neighbourhoods.
- We want to build a strong alliance of grassroots organisations whose voices can be heard jointly and have a collective impact on policy and service provision decision in our communities
- With our close connections with local residents and service users we an opportunity to shape what we as a grassroots-led network want our local ‘Anti-Poverty Communities’ to look like.
Outcomes from the existing local partnerships
We have found that working in this way has ensured we reduce duplication as much as possible, identify and fill gaps in local provision, reach more people, share resources and increase knowledge of service provision across the neighbourhood. Organisations in the Chorlton/Chorlton Park wards are already taking this approach and outcomes have included:
- 5,000 leaflets printed and delivered containing information around existing provision, the support they offer and how to access – this was also shared digitally on social media and via schools emailing channels (e.g. parentmail)
- 300+ Winter Warmer packs provided
- Referrals to Groundworks Green Doctor’s for an at home energy efficiency check looking at reducing energy costs
- Over £5,000 distributed to local people through MCC’s Household support fund
- Over £4,000 distributed to local children’s families in the form of Aldi vouchers
- 250 children receiving Christmas presents
- Over £9,000 raised in partnership funding applications to support projects such as cooking on a budget, purchasing slow cookers, and food shopping to increase foodbank and Quids In stock levels
Please get in touch with [email protected] and [email protected] if you would like to find out more about our city-wide programme of workshops, anti-poverty summit, and our project more generally. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you on the 6th July!
