We have awarded a community grand to Manchester Young Lives.

The organisation, which supports people aged between 5 and 20, offers four divisions of work. Play work with younger children is the organisation’s largest volume, with over 3,000 participating in after-school and holiday activities annually. It also runs an independent alternative school provision for 50 young people excluded from mainstream education and has a street-based youth education team working with more vulnerable young people exposed to exploitation. 

Its fourth division is employability skills for 16-19 year-olds which is targeted toward young people with learning difficulties.

A spokesperson for Manchester Young Lives said: 

“We have three centres in Manchester, Moss Side, Wythenshawe and Ardwick which have high numbers of disadvantaged children and young people. The majority of participants live locally to our centres, but our detached youth workers also work regularly in the city centre and at local hot spots for nuisance behaviours e.g., bus and tram stations.

“We celebrated our 50th year in 2020. We recorded 4,400 individuals who engaged with our services — around 50% of these will attend multiple times each week. Our focus is on improving the life chances of young people to progress into successful adults and lead healthy independent lives. Our main route to this is by providing activities which encourage and support education, training and employment.

“Most have an enrichment element to promote personal and social development. Youth leadership is a key theme in our work using social action projects to develop personal and community benefits. Over 80% of our participants achieve formal and nonformal awards and qualifications when they were not predicted to do so previously.”

Our community grant is to support Manchester Young Live’s core costs and salaries.