Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project was established in 1977 by local residents to support the community and people of Harpurhey. They lived through the many decades of hardship that has been perpetuated within the community and, with the support of Manchester City Council, sought to make substantial and meaningful change. The Project is a community-led group that aims to encourage and support the community and people of Harpurhey in improving the community, the local environment, and their own personal lives.
Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project is based at the Harpurhey Neighbourhood Centre in Manchester, about three miles northeast of Manchester’s thriving and bustling city centre. As a city, Manchester is full of contrasts and divergences – North and South, Red and Blue, and the powerhouses behind industrial, social, and technological revolutions, to name a few. Nowhere is this seen more than in areas of affluence and areas of deprivation. 40.8% of Manchester’s Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) are in the most deprived 10% of LSOAs nationally, and Manchester has ranked top in the proportion of LSOAs that are in the most deprived 10% in Health Deprivation and Disability. In 2007, Harpurhey was named as the most deprived area in England, according to a report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. (Source: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/harpurhey-the-worst-place-in-england-1108111)
Harpurhey itself was the birthplace of Anthony Burgess, writer of dystopian satirical novel “A Clockwork Orange”. Nowhere is this more evident than within the community itself, with people coming together despite their differences to help those most in need. Community groups work beyond “helping their own” and combine to form partnerships and collaborations that have proven incredibly successful
Our Mission Statement
Our mission is to have a consistent and intentional presence in the community of Harpurhey. We are dedicated to remaining a grassroots by-and-for community organisation that places the needs of our community residents at the heart of all which we do.
Our neighbourhood project will provide a space where the community is welcomed, and able to be themselves freely. Our spaces acknowledge people’s basic needs as a right, and we reject ideas of conditionality and eligibility, instead we embrace our varying levels of needs as ways to connect people and deepen community unity.
We have no aspiration to grow as an organisation, but rather aspire to develop with our community. Refusing to ‘do to’, opting instead to work with, guided by the needs and ideas of the people with whom we are in relationship with, whilst remaining firmly grounded in and committed to North Manchester.
We are committed to using our position as an organisation to truly represent, embody and advocate for the spirit and community of Harpurhey, rejecting the barriers and boundaries of professionalism, instead embracing authenticity, and the reality of collective experience which informs our work and keeps us grounded.
Our work and service to community will always be driven by love of community and our shared identities, as such we are committed to embracing centering and celebrating diversity, equality and inclusion. Striving to always represent and uplift community voice and experience, engaging and learning from others, creating with and supporting each other, and using our position to facilitate localised infrastructure, opportunities and events which make navigating life more than survival but instead enables and enriches development, creativity, growth, and joy.
Our Core Values
Community
The foundation that lies at the heart of Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project is community. We exist to be present for residents in Harpurhey, and North Manchester. We are dedicated to providing a welcoming, empathetic and supportive space in our community centre and believe in building and nurturing strong relationships. We value Harpurhey and the surrounding areas, and recognise the beauty and spirit that our community has to offer. All of our work is driven by being in relationship with people from our local area and working in service to them. We are committed to ensuring that community voice and needs are prioritised and uplifted, whether in internal decision making or when opportunities arise, and in externally facing advocacy. We replicate this in our workforce, ensuring that the majority of opportunities are offered to those from the local and immediate area.
Real
‘Keeping it real’ is a mantra for Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project. We do not shy away from the truth, and we do not restrict ourselves when speaking of what it is to come from or be living in Harpurhey. Remaining true to ourselves and our realities ensures that we are grounded in community, we do not strive to embody palatability in our work, approaches or partnerships, instead we are dedicated to remaining authentic in how we work with and represent our community, as well as who we work with. Recognizing that real community is human, and that means it can be difficult, unpredictable, and nuanced, but we believe these things add to making a community beautiful, intricate, ever growing and evolving.
Grassroots
Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project is and aims to always exist as an organisation that operates as by-and-for the local community. There is no aspiration to grow
beyond our community, but rather with it. We recognise and value our existence in the ward of Harpurhey and North Manchester as part of the community, rather than
adjacent to it. We proudly and defiantly strive to remain an independently governed neighbourhood project, situated in a position to challenge powerful institutions and people, advocate for collective community needs, and support all in our community to mitigate the difficulties and harm which many of us from neglected, marginalised and working class communities are forced to face. We are privileged to own a wonderful resource in our building, and we are dedicated to using this to always have an on the ground presence that allows us to create responsive and grassroots infrastructure which responds to human need rather than being solely policy and
strategy centred.
Imaginative
Imagination is a core skill used to navigate and survive life for many people in our community. For us it’s a skill and a value that is embedded into our organisation and
approaches. Imagination allows us to use our resources to meet our community’s varying needs, it allows us to envision the structures of care and support that we want accessible to us, and it allows us to dream beyond our realities, supporting us to build together what our neighbourhood needs. Our imagination offers us hope,
and motivation in the hardest of times, it brings us solutions and new ways of doing things. We embrace being imaginative as an organisation, and in our work with people, allowing ourselves to embrace qualities of child-like dreaming and wild creativity so that together we can make our aspirations realities.
In 1982, the Harpurhey Neighbourhood Centre was opened and became a permanent base for Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project. Funding from the National Lottery in 2001 meant new amenities could be added, including a lift, a balcony, an IT suite, and three offices which would become the Opal Room, now the main office from where North Manchester FM is based. Over the decades, our activities and services have changed and diversified, but it has always been shaped by the local community and the people we serve. We currently offer the following services and activities:
We hold regular consultations with the community to develop our service areas and have identified many areas that we are looking to develop. The changes in the community, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, have encouraged us to focus on areas such as youth services, expanding IAG services, improvements to our Kitchen and Café, and a community garden.