Until recently Greater Manchester was known as the ‘ASBO capital of the UK’ reflecting the high number of antisocial behaviour orders imposed across the city since they were introduced in 1999. Around half were imposed on youths under the age of 17.

But that’s beginning to change thanks in part to new partnerships between the police, communities, churches and organisations like The Message. Leading the way is the innovative Eden Bus project. Its two double decker buses show up weekly in some of Manchester’s toughest neighbourhoods, acting as a focus for long-term youth work, and a remedy for youth crime and antisocial behaviour.

Bus Project Manager Julie Mason explains: ‘On our estates in the city there are so many young people just hanging around, nothing to do, nowhere to go. At the same time, within our churches we’ve got hundreds of people who really care about the kids in their own communities. What the Eden Bus does is put the two together.’

Each bus is fitted out with hi-tech gadgets and games but more traditional games, including skipping, football and rounders, are just as popular: ‘We try to get kids involved in activities which cause them to chat to each other and interact with the adult volunteers on the bus’, adds Julie.

The Eden Bus team works in partnership with local churches who supply volunteers with a heart for local young people. Increasingly support is also being provided by police and local authorities who are beginning to see the bus as a powerful way of fighting nuisance behaviour and crime.

One partnership that has seen particular success over the last year is in the Limeside area of Oldham. There, local police turned to churches and third-sector organisations to help tackle problem behaviour among young people around Limeside.

In the autumn of 2009, neighbourhood police Inspector David Stopford began planning with local groups for a three-month dispersal order. But the approach was different from the beginning.

‘Dispersal orders are often initiated by the police on their own, without partners,’ Inspector Stopford told us. ‘It’s one tool in the toolbox to deal with young people acting in an antisocial manner. This is fine but what you can end up doing is simply moving a problem from A to B, and not really solving the root issues.’

‘What we tried to do this time is to work with partners to provide positive diversionary activities for young people. So it’s not just been about law enforcement, it’s been about providing good facilities for young people to go to, rather than hanging around on street corners.’

By the time the dispersal order began in December, several new initiatives for young people were in place, including the Eden Bus, strongly supported locally by New Life Church in Failsworth.

The partnership was a huge success. Inspector Stopford’s team saw a reduction of over 50% in calls about antisocial behaviour from the general public from December to March. Reports of associated crimes such as criminal damage and vehicle crime were also down. It’s a trend that he believes will continue:

‘It’s had a great impact. Right from the launch of the initiative in December, the young people have understood why we’re running this dispersal order and seen how groups of young people can be intimidating to other residents. They’ve also seen our motivation to put something on for them – facilities, initiatives, opportunities – and these things will continue even though the dispersal order has finished.’

The project has also succeeded in changing young people’s attitudes towards the police, their community and the church, believes Julie Mason:

‘We can certainly see a difference within the young people and the way they interact, both with us and the police. They were quite sceptical at first but that’s disappeared. They’re starting to come to the bus volunteers with issues and asking for support in the things they want to achieve in their lives. It’s a real testament to the people working on the project.

‘Barriers between young and older people in the community are beginning to break down. I’m delighted that the Eden Bus has played a part in that.’

To find out more about the Eden Bus project, visit www.message.org.uk/bus or call Julie Mason on 0161 946 2300.

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This article first appeared in the Summer edition of Flow Magazine.

How long have you been here? I have been here since April 2007, but I also volunteered between August ‘05 – April ’07.

What is your role on the team? I’m the manager of the Bus Project. I develop the projects and co-ordinate leaders, drivers and volunteers. I also develop the vision for the Project within the community.

What’s your favourite part of the evening? Watching people from local churches build relationships with young people and seeing the volunteers’ confidence develop.

Can you give us a brief version of your testimony: The most amazing thing God has done in my life is transform me from a woman who would ‘cross to the other side’ when coming across groups of young people in the street, into being a woman who encourages others to engage with these groups- someone should do something!

How long have you been here? Since the beginning of September 2009.

What is your role on the team? I’m the Eden Bus Intern. I do whatever Julie can’t do or asks me to.

What’s your favourite part of the evening? Talking to young people, relaxing and listening to music with them.

Can you give us a brief version of your testimony: I became a Christian at Merseyfest 2003 (a Christian summer festival). I truly committed my life to Christ and it was then that God told me what I’d be doing for the rest of my life: Serving Him.

The Eden Buses are two double-decker buses, which work in partnership with local churches to provide a safe place for young people to chill out, chat with their friends, meet new people and learn new skills. They often work in areas where young people are getting involved with high levels of anti-social behaviour and crime, and are aimed specifically at people between the ages of 13-19.

The Buses arrive each week at the same time, and the same place, creating an environment which enables great relationships to be built not only within the team but also within the communities. Greater Manchester Police support the work of the Eden Buses by encouraging new locations to be visited.

The Eden Buses bring over 5,000 young people in contact with 27 churches across Greater Manchester each year. There is something for everyone, and a focus on encouraging each person to make positive decisions in their lives.

We recently met up with Julie Mason, Manager of the Bus Project, to find out more.

The Message: Julie, can you tell us more about the role of the buses?

Julie Mason: The role of the Eden bus is to act as a catalyst for churches to do their own youth work. Many churches are scared of doing youth work because they don’t feel equipped to go out into the community and look for those kids who probably need a lot of care and attention. So we provide a venue, the training and the provision for youth work to take place. The Eden bus is about breaking down the barriers between churches, the community and the young people.

TM: Who makes up the staff? Do you use Message staff or volunteers?

JM: The churches themselves can group together and provide the staff for the bus.

TM: Is there such a thing as an ‘average night’?

JM: No, not really, every night is completely different, and every project is different from another, although the overall structure is quite similar.

Once the session is up and running we think its better that the youths just arrive at the bus and do the stuff that they want to do. At the end of the evening we get them all together and have a God-slot or what we call a ‘family time’. Many of the kids that come to the bus don’t really have a particular time as a family time. We try to recreate a little bit of that on the bus.

Before they leave we pray together and basically ‘download’ what we’ve been doing: things that we could’ve done better, things that have gone really well.

TM: So how do you get ready for a session? Do you have a time of prayer or talk about what you’re going to do?

JM: Each session starts with the staff praying together. There are various places in the bus that need to be covered for safety reasons and the general smooth running of the project. For example, we’ve got various fire escapes on the upper deck, which is a bad idea! The team leaders allocate everybody on the bus a job for that particular night, and those are switched round over the course of the week.

TM: Is there a specific day of the week that you take the buses out?

Well, we’ve got two buses so we have the capacity to run 12 sessions a week. We generally go out in the evenings because, from a youth work point of view, even if the kids aren’t in school they ought to be. So we’re sort of ‘restricted’ to taking the bus out in the evenings. We create a youth club, so the bus is parked in a location on a Tuesday night, for example, and the churches set up in that location. This is their project, and its every week.

story of Eden on national TV this Christmas.

UCB TV will show the 30-minute documentary about Eden titled ‘Eden: A Story of Hope’ twice over the Christmas period, on Sunday December 27 at 9pm, and on Wednesday December 30 at 7.30pm,

The programme traces the history of Eden and how it has impacted the lives of the young people living in partner communities, together with Eden’s vision for the future. It features interviews with Eden workers, and National Director Matt Wilson (pictured).

The Eden Network is a series of community-based partnerships which aim to improve the lives of young people living in the most deprived communities in the nation. 

There are currently 10 partnerships running across Greater Manchester, with youth workers moving into each community and working with local churches and organisations to provide activities and a ‘safe place’ for young people to hang out.

New partnerships are also being set up in other parts of the UK including Sheffield and London, marking the start of nine Eden ‘hubs’ in the most deprived areas across the nation.

Watch the documentary on UCB TV, Sky Channel 586 or via UCB’s website.

Broadcast Times: Sunday December 27 at 9pm, and Wednesday December 30 at 7.30pm.

The Eden Bus Cheadle Hulme project has been nominated by the local community this month in Waitrose’s new award scheme ‘Community Matters.’

The scheme, which sees Waitrose put back part of its profits into the local community, is a great opportunity for the project to receive recognition from their local community. For the next month shoppers will be able to vote for the project after doing their daily shop in the local store.

The Cheadle Hulme project has been going for almost 12 months now and has become an established part of Friday night in the area. An average of 75 young people attend each week, allowing long-lasting relationships to be developed with local volunteers.

The team work in partnership with local organisations, such as Greater Manchester Police and various churches.

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An estimated 50,000 copies of The Message’s youth discipleship DVD Deep are poised to be distributed across Central Asia thanks to a partnership with Kairos Media Trust.

The DVDs, dubbed in Kyrgyz and Russian, are just the latest batch to be distributed. Thousands of copies of Deep and Fresh have already reached young people across Central Asia. Kairos trustee Nick Hall comments,

‘There is such a need for these DVDs. Over half the population of Central Asia is under the age of 25, yet there is almost nothing on DVD to point them to Jesus. Right now, demand for the resources is far outstripping supply.’

Importing DVDs into countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is fraught with difficulty, so local churches are pioneering production and distribution themselves. But you can help. Every £1 donated pays for two DVDs to be produced.

If you’d like to help, contact silkroad@kairosmedia.org.

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The 2009-10 school year looks set to be the busiest year by far for our bands and theatre company working in Greater Manchester’s schools.

A total of 75 schools weeks are planned for LZ7, Blush, Twelve24 and In Yer Face next year and we are working harder than ever to ensure that the majority of schools weeks are done in partnership with local churches.

Check out the ‘Day in The Life with Nathan Milnes’ story for a behind-the-scenes look at our schools work in action. And there’s more.  Look out in the new year for news of our biggest ever evangelism event in Manchester. We can’t say too much yet but it’s going to be… big.

Also next year, we are attempting to get the LZ7 anthem This Little Light into the UK charts, not so that the boys can be stars but so that we can reach even more young people. ‘White label’ versions of the track will appear in clubs from the summer and a release is scheduled for next autumn.

Manchester born and bred, Nathan Milnes has been part of The Message team for seven years, working first as Eden Team Leader in Failsworth and now leading our outreach in schools.

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7.30am

Early start today… we’ve got Blush, LZ7 and In Yer Face all in schools across Manchester this week. I arrive at a high school to check in with LZ7 and to meet the link teacher. Our church contact is also around all this week, helping establish a really strong relationship with the school. The sound check goes OK and after a few small tweaks to the timetable, I head off.

9am

Back to the office in time for Staff Prayers. I love this part of the job – what other job starts the day with prayer?

10am

Time to check emails, return a couple of phone calls and log on to Facebook. This isn’t a chance to check my own page (well maybe a cheeky peek!) but to check all the bands’ pages – it’s a great way for us to keep in touch and answer questions from past school weeks. We also use Facebook to continue follow-up with young people and encourage them to get along to church.

11am

Update meeting with Alan Saunders. Alan and I work closely together on finding local churches that want to do mission in their local high school. Our goal is to run every schools week as a partnership with a church because they are absolutely vital in providing prayer, follow-up and finance.

Alan tells me he has met with a local church leader who is excited about a possible schools week but they are struggling with one aspect: it’s likely to cost £1,500 and they can’t afford to pay for it. We agree to go back to them and say that we’ll find a way to make it work: the opportunity for mission is too good to let it pass by. We’ll say to them to raise what they can and we will underwrite the rest.

12.30pm

Head off to Starbucks to meet up with a local youth leader to catch up with them and find out what’s going on within their church and youth ministry. I try to meet with youth leaders across the city as much as possible.

2pm

Find a quiet space in the office (not easy to be honest!) to do some prep for a church I’m speaking at on Sunday. When a church decides to partner with us on a schools week we’re committed to helping the whole church buy into the vision of a schools week and pray for it. I will be preaching about mission and the call we have to tell people about Jesus.

4pm

Get on the phone to find out numbers for an upcoming curry night for youth leaders. We do these quarterly for youth leaders in the area to network and get some quality input that will benefit them and their ministry. It is a fact that all youth leaders love a good curry.

5.15pm

Snatch a few minutes off before the evening gets going.

6.30pm

Arrive at Costa Coffee. Tonight we’re doing the second part of a four week follow-up course for young people who became Christians at a recent Unleashed gig nearby. We like to do these at neutral venues like coffee shops where kids can feel relaxed. We always do it in partnership with the local church. We talk through the programme and the team prays together.

7.30pm

About forty young people have arrived and are sipping drinks and chatting. The programme kicks off, led by the local youth leaders and with contributions from the Message team. The girls are particularly excited that a couple of guys from LZ7 have put in an appearance!

Tonight we’re looking at more of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and how to live as a Christian. You can tell that the young people are really responding to the talk and building quality relationships with the youth leaders. At the end of the four weeks we hope that most of the young people will feel really at home with the local church and become members of the youth group.

9pm

The young people have gone so there’s just time for a quick debrief about the evening and to share encouraging stories from our small groups. We then pray for the young people and do the job that everyone loves… pack-down!

9.30pm

The day is done and I’m on my way home.

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Get The Message in your school

You’re only one call away from having one of our bands or theatre company coming to your local high school. If you’re a church,
 please contact Alan Saunders. For schools, contact Nathan Milnes.
 Or call 0161 946 2300.

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Message bands LZ7, Blush and Twelve24 spent time in six schools in the area, taking lessons and running workshops.

The gig, hosted by Ian Henderson and Nathan Milnes, featured performances from each of the bands including a moving performance of ‘The Avenue’, a track from Twelve24′s new album, by band member Ryan. A total of 95 young people texted a response at the end of the show, and have been given the opportunity to take part in a four-week follow up course.

The first follow-up session took place this Wednesday (October 20) at The Hub, a Community Centre in Altrincham. The sessions, run in partnership with youth leaders from local churches, will look at issues such as ‘Who is Jesus?’, ‘What is a Christian?’, ‘Building a relationship with Jesus’ and ‘Church and the importance of church in a Christian life’.

The schools weeks and subsequent gig were carried out in partnership with local churches, in an effort to provide the young people and their schools with a well-rounded and positive experience.

These two weeks are just the latest in a series of schools weeks happening across Manchester this year, part of our busiest year in schools ever.