Middlesbrough Reads

The Moses Project supports local men, often those who are struggling with addiction and mental illness troubles. We offer mentoring, guidance and activities, as well as serving food to the men every day and giving out food parcels. We aim to eventually provide support through client accommodation with facilities for cooking and washing and activity and workshop space. To support our group, please follow our project page and share our work with your supporters.

My Sister’s Place is a specialist Violence Against Women and Girls service, one of few in the UK BACP Accredited. We provide holistic, therapeutic and practical support to victims in their journey out of abuse and support them to make life-changing decisions. We focus on housing, personal safety, finances, criminal/civil justice, fighting to keep children, immigration and threats of deportation. We also give mental health support in the psychological recovery from the impact of interpersonal trauma and abuse. MSP raise awareness, advocate, challenge, influence, provide education/training and work with a range of external partners. We encourage, enable, empower and believe with the right resources, everyone has the capability to thrive. We aim to create safer communities where everyone can live free from domestic abuse, violence against women, and sexual violence. Our mission is to provide high quality, innovative, end-to-end services to enable victims to move from surviving to thriving. Demand for our services is the highest we have experienced in our 23-year history supporting 5560 individuals and their children last year to live safe and fulfilling lives, gain access to Justice and improve their Health and Well-being. Our children and young people’s project reached 1531 individuals. Middlesbrough faces a density of risk factors that correlate with high levels of domestic violence equating to double the National average per head of population. Domestic abuse is also the single highest cause of homelessness in Middlesbrough (80%) and is sighted in over 85% of child protection cases.

We are a group of residents living in the Gresham and Linthorpe areas of Middlesbrough. Our neighbourhoods typically consist of rows of terraced houses, with shared alleys at the back. The alleys are used for access, but also for collection of household waste and recycling. They're often misused and neglected, but we like to turn them into gardens! We work together, with other neighbours and some of the organisations active in our area to clean and clear the spaces, and we begin planting in tubs and boxes. We often hold parties and events in the alleys so that people can meet and share time in a safe space. Children are free to play in the spaces and sometimes we organised games days. We celebrate birthdays, we paint murals, we show films and we've even held concerts! Our neighbourhood is described as 'deprived,' but we see a rich community of different but wonderful people. We have our problems, but we tackle them by working together and building strong networks that support people when they need it. We've successfully tackled several alleys, but we want to do more so that more of our neighbours can benefit and become Alley Pals. Everyone is welcome! The Alley Pals project is managed by Barefoot Kitchen CIC, together with local residents.