One Manchester has received a confirmed National Lottery grant of £69,000 for its Marketplace heritage project.  Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, the project will enable the Manchester-based housing provider to deliver its new resident engagement project, exploring the social history, heritage and culture of the local markets over the last 100 years.

Supported through the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), the project, in connection with a number of external partners, including the North West Film Archive and Manchester Central & Local Libraries, Marketplace will seek to inspire and engage local people to share their as yet undiscovered social, trade and civic connections to past and present neighbourhood markets in Gorton, Longsight and Moss Side. Through the project, One Manchester is aiming to link residents with the history of their local areas, and to local services available from One Manchester and other agencies.

The housing provider is looking for six volunteers to help deliver the project, which will result in a work placement at the end of each project stage. Volunteers will receive oral history training from Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Archive, the chance to visit historical and cultural venues and training in both social media and photography.

The project has already begun its delivery, and will culminate with a multi-media exhibition at the Manchester Central Library in April 2019. Engagement has started in Gorton, and will run until the 25th October, Moss Side from 31st October – 21st December, and finally Longsight from 7th January – 2nd March. A detailed schedule of activities taking place in each phase is available for residents wishing to take part in the project.

Phil Lukes, Group Culture Lead at One Manchester, said: “We’re delighted that we’ve received this support thanks to National Lottery players.  We’ve found that very little has been documented and archived about Manchester’s neighbourhood markets, so this project gives us an opportunity to listen to local residents’ stories about their market experiences and to work with them to create and share new and valuable archive material that can be accessed by anyone.

“We’ll be working at local community venues, neighbourhood libraries and our own facilities, offering a timetable of engagement, training and volunteer activities, so if you have a story about the market, are interesting in volunteering or simply want to learn more about your local area, please come down and visit us!”

The pop-up markets will be taking place at the following locations:

Gorton Market, Garratt Way, Manchester M18 8LD

Alexandra Park, Russell Street, Manchester M16 7JL

Longsight Market, 393 Dickenson Road, Manchester M13 0WG

 

-ENDS-

For more information

If you are interested in the project, have a local connection, memory or story to share as a local resident, service user or local community group from Gorton, Moss Side or Longsight then we would like to hear from you.  

Please contact:

Phil Lukes, Group Culture Lead, One Manchester

Email: culture@onemanchester.co.uk

Tel. 0161 276 7314

 

Notes to editors:

About One Manchester:

One Manchester is a provider of housing and community services, offering support to people in all areas and stages of life and circumstance.

We own and manage more than 12,000 homes in central, south and east Manchester.

We make a difference to people and places by creating opportunities, transforming communities and changing lives.

As an organisation that values an imaginative approach, we are constantly seeking new and innovative ways of investing, creating partnerships and bringing people together to make a long-lasting, positive impact on our communities. We call this social innovation.

These are exciting times for the city of Manchester and the wider region. We have ambitious plans to build on the success of Manchester, to ensure growth continues in the housing, services and partnerships that we provide. 

In developing new homes and business opportunities, we aim to offer more choice, quality and value to our existing and new customers alike.

For more information: www.onemanchester.co.uk

For press enquiries, contact Laura Lewis on 0161 274 2170 or laura.lewis@onemanchester.co.uk

About the Heritage Lottery Fund
Thanks to National Lottery players, we invest money to help people across the UK explore, enjoy and protect the heritage they care about - from the archaeology under our feet to the historic parks and buildings we love, from precious memories and collections to rare wildlife. www.hlf.org.uk Follow us on Twitter  Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLottery and #HLFsupported.