M&S Didsbury

Barnabus is a Christian Homeless Charity in Manchester bringing hope and transformation to people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping in our City for 30 years. We empower and equip people experiencing homelessness back into independent living and a home through our street outreach, support centre, healthcare and resettlement tenancy scheme. Our support team includes nurses and case workers providing meaningful, one to one support and trauma informed care. We help with accommodation, recovery from addictions and support physical and mental wellbeing. We also offer connections to training and employment opportunities thanks to our partnerships, connections and corporate supporters. Our resettlement tenancy programme is for anyone who is ready, with our help to make the step from emergency or supported accommodation into a shared house and home of their own. We enable and equip people with the life skills they need and encouragement to succeed at independent living. We also celebrate the importance of making a house into a home and provide support to help promote connections and a sense of belonging and being part of the local community. This is just one inspiring story of an amazing lady who found freedom from addiction and rough sleeping into a new life and home through our Barnabus Resettlement Tenancy Scheme. In recent weeks she has moved into her own home with her partner and we’ve been able to share their joy at her becoming a mum and feeling full of hope for the future. https://www.barnabus-manchester.org.uk/blog/freedom-from-sleeping-rough-and-addiction

Southway Housing Trust are aiding in the fight against food poverty by giving support to those who need it most. The rise in food poverty and surge in the use of food banks has shown that many low income families are finding it difficult to feed and provide for their families. This has led to Southway's Quids In initiative to bring people together and tackle food poverty. Quids In operates 5 Food Club in South Manchester. Our membership has risen, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, to around 280 low income and vulnerable households every week. This is an increase of nearly 50% so there are more challenges than ever before around getting enough food and we have waiting lists we’re trying hard to work through as quickly as possible. Usual operation: Members pay £3 and can then visit our small shop and choose around £15 worth of fresh, chilled and ambient food supplied by food redistribution charity Fareshare and other donations. The clubs also act as a means of referring members to other support services. We now have 5 shops supported by volunteers serving Chorlton, Burnage and Withington areas of Manchester.

Our aims and values in this project are; Reducing the amount of food that goes to waste Around 15 million tonnes of food is wasted every year in the UK alone, and the vast majority of that food is perfectly edible. The lowest carbon, most sustainable thing we can do with food that is going to go to waste is put it in a belly, any belly, rather than a bin, any bin (landfill, anaerobic digestion, animal feed, or compost). For every tonne of food that we save from going to waste, we save around 4.2 tonnes of CO2e from being emitted, and around 10% of the UK’s carbon footprint comes from food that is produced but never eaten. Providing access to enough food and great food for all Open Kitchen MCR is, among many other things, a live experiment in alternative economic models. The project operated for 3 years on a pay-as-you-feel basis, inviting members of the public to decide how much they would pay for their meal in a huge range of settings. While this model had huge social and environmental positives, it proved financially unsustainable. Open Kitchen MCR’s catering social enterprise operates on a pay-it-forward basis. The project offers catering at set prices, with one rate for private and corporate customers, a lower rate for established not-for-profit groups, and free or heavily subsidised catering for grassroots groups who are supporting vulnerable adults. Dignity, choice and social inclusion - a positive community future Our pay-as-you-feel model (employed at our city centre restaurant, open from Sep 2017 - Aug 2018) offered an innovative, inclusive model that deliberately bucked the trend towards dedicated “food poverty project” models. There are a number of projects that target people in food poverty, and in our current economic climate they are essential. However, the fact remains that by targeting people in food poverty, we also further separate and isolate them. Open Kitchen MCR aims to develop an alternative model that can evolve along side these projects, and offer a more inclusive option to bring a wider range of people together. Unfortunately, we found it wasn’t possible to support pay-as-you-feel financially, for a range of reasons. Our current outside catering venture operates on a pay-it-forward model, and supports grassroots groups that offer dignity, choice and support to vulnerable adults. We hope to continue our experiment into alternative economic models, and trial a new socially inclusive cafe / restaurant space in 2020.