Moving Manchester

Marion Hewitt at the Northwest Film Archive

An inter-generational exploration of life in Hulme and Moss Side in the 1960 – 80s through contemporary BBC North West television features.

The North West Film Archive’s collections richly represent how communities lived, worked and enjoyed precious leisure time – film has a unique ability to evoke and engage with our histories. But this visual record does not fully represent the region’s evolving diversities, particularly after immigration from the Caribbean and Asia from the 1940s. ‘Moving Memories’ will help to close that gap.

The NWFA – in partnership with Karen Gabay of Innospace-based Troubadour Foundation, BBC Information & Archives, and the Manchester Centre for Regional History – will take unique BBC NW regional archive programmes into communities in Hulme and Moss Side. The aim is to inspire story-sharing – reconnecting this footage with the communities it portrays and seeking new perspectives. Troubadour’s expertise in community relations strengthens this opportunity to bring generations together in developing historical understanding and meanings that will have personal, regional and wider significance. A short film and podcast will be produced.

MMU Web Angels

Guy Lancaster

This project will provide a user-maintainable web presence to community groups in Crewe, Hulme and East Manchester that will enable them to market their activities and communicate with funders, volunteers, client and stakeholder groups.

The programme will be delivered through co-ordinated volunteering opportunities for students from the Department of Information and Communication’s BSc. Web Development Programme.

CoMMUni will offer a volunteer induction training package to BSc. Web Development students whilst activities will be co-ordinated by Guy Lancaster, who brings to the project 20 years working as an IT solutions developer.

Lasting benefits will include:

• delivering and updating a web presence of 20 community groups that will allow them to communicate with funders, volunteers and client groups. Use will be made of conventional website technology and user-maintainable Web 2.0 technology such as blogs and wikis;
• providing ‘live’ work experience placements for 20 students via the creation of client-led resources and enhancing their employability profile.

The Manchester Conference for Black Parents, Children and Young People

Peter Hick and Diane Watt at the Institute of Education

This project will build an alliance of parents, teachers and communities to take positive steps in addressing the lower qualifications and disproportionate exclusions experienced by children from some black and minority ethnic communities in Manchester.

In the 21st century it is still the case that pupils from some black and minority ethnic communities face a disproportionately high rate of permanent exclusion from school; and are likely to achieve disproportionately low educational outcomes. There is an urgent need to mobilise parental support for collaboration with teachers in addressing these issues.

Black History Month in October 2009 presents an ideal opportunity for MMU to host a major event aimed at bringing together a wide range teachers, academics and policy makers in engaging with parents, young people and community groups from black and minority ethnic communities.

This project will be managed by Peter Hick and Diane Watt, Senior Lecturers at the Institute of Education; with the support of a Steering Group, including representatives from the Louise Da-Cocodia Trust, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust, the Education & Social Research Institute, and the Centre for Urban Education.

Moss Side Stories

Linnie Blake

Moss Side Stories is a multimedia project that enables the pupils of The Manchester Academy (a high school that serves the communities of Moss Side, Hulme and Rusholme) to explore their own, often extraordinary, life stories in the form of autobiographical writing, video art and dramatic performance.

Opening up the facilities and expertise of the university through a series of professionally facilitated workshops, video shoots and rehearsals, Moss Side Stories will culminate in a multimedia exhibition to be hosted by MMU in the summer of 2009.

As such, Moss Side Stories will allow MMU students to gain CV-building experience in the fields of creative writing, drama and video production whilst giving Academy students, who between them speak some 63 languages, a personal knowledge of their local university and the self-esteem necessary to apply for a place in higher education, should they so choose, when the time comes.

Manchester MetHODS: Hulme Open Design Studio

Martyn Amos

The ubiquity of mobile phones and services such as Facebook means that people are increasingly fascinated by computing technologies.

Learning to write simple software will allow people to take their computing skills to the ‘next level’. Manchester MetHODS will demystify computers, and show, using workshops, how easy it is to create (rather than simply use) interesting and useful software.

I have strong confirmed support from ArcSpace Manchester, a community cluster based in Hulme that will offer an ideal foundational partnership.

Apart from the obvious skills benefits, participants will be encouraged to view software development as an inherently creative process. The word ‘Open’ is key; in the spirit of other community projects, we will use open-source software, but, in a more general sense, the project will be open to all.

Main objectives:

1. Build sustainable connections with community groups,
2. Empower local people,
3. Lay foundations for a proposal to support future expansion.

Hulme Sweet Hulme

Lynn Setterington

This collaboration is a celebration of Hulme past, present and future. It will explore the stories and histories of its people using the notion of home. Creativity, making, skill sharing, and joint endeavour are all key.

Hulme through maps new and old will be stitched and drawn, also places/countries once called home. The threshold and what this means for different cultures is another theme. This involves making and documenting features such as doormats, graffiti, hanging baskets and house numbers and names.

Partners include Harp (Health, Advocacy and Resource Project) Hulme Community Garden Centre, Hulme schools and Library, the Claremont Resource Centre, Venture Arts (adults with learning disabilities), Zion Centre and local cafes and shops. Working alongside MMU students is implicit within the project.

The culmination will be an event showcasing the outcomes, both an affirmation and a celebration of the strength and diversity of Hulme throughout many changes.