We’ve been working with Amy (not her real name) for the last six years, since she was just 11. She’s had lots of tough things to deal with in her life – she didn’t engage well at school and was passed around social services from a young age.

Her future looked likely to follow the same pattern as her family’s past – three generations without work, education or training. She always seemed to think she couldn’t do anything.

Amy started coming along to one of our follow-on sessions where we cooked tea together, ate and chatted. We noticed that cooking seemed to really inspire her so we started encouraging her to have a go. To our amazement, this August she had enough confidence to apply for a course in catering at college – and they accepted her!

With a bit of support, Amy’s now doing really well. We believe that showing her unconditional love over the long term has helped her to realise that she is valuable and can do something positive with her life – what a transformation!

We need your help to put another vital Eden Bus on the road. Will you ‘get on board’?

many years of faithful service, one of our two Eden Buses is about to go into retirement. We’re now seeking your help to put a new Eden Bus on the road.

The Eden Bus is much more than a youth club on wheels; it’s aimed at those hanging around with nothing to do, sometimes getting involved in anti-social behaviour.

And it’s working – to the point where reports of anti-social behaviour have fallen as relationships between young people, local churches and police are strengthened.

Demand for the Buses’ unique contribution to community transformation has never been higher and young people are starting to say ‘I can’ instead of ‘I can’t’.

Our friends at Stagecoach Manchester are generously donating a bus. But before we can take it out on the streets it needs a thorough refit to make it a safe, attractive youth facility on wheels.

Will you stand with us to help refit this new bus? We need 100 people to donate £22 each month for 3 years so our work can continue to give hope to a lost generation.

Click here to download a form to start giving to the Eden Bus project today.

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.

…

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

Eden Bus, operated by Manchester-based youth charity The Message Trust, assisted Operation ‘Super Vortex’ by providing a venue for officers to meet with the young people of Brinnington and explain to them what was happening as the police sweep took place. Young people were directed from the streets by police officers to the Eden Bus, situated in Brinnington Park.

Operation Super Vortex was designed to address the concerns and fears of local residents worried by anti-social behaviour – part of a police strategy to find long-term solutions to local worries. A total of 120 police officers were involved, resulting in several arrests and warrants executed,

Staff from the Eden Bus worked alongside members from St Luke’s Church and police officers organising a number of activities ranging from hi-tech gaming consoles to old-fashioned skipping games. Eden Bus is in Brinnington Park each Wednesday evening until 9pm for young people to meet up with their friends and meet new people.

This is just one way in which Eden Bus is working together with churches and statutory agencies to help to find solutions which help to build communities which have a ‘feel-safe’ factor.

Read a report of the initiative from local newspaper, Stockport Express here.

How long have you been here? 8 years

What is your role/what do you do? My job is to maintain the Eden Buses.  I look after the engines, fill the fuel tanks, make sure there is oil and water, take the buses for MOT’s and Safety Inspections, and make sure that the equipment on each bus is in good working order. The Eden Buses are almost 28 years old now, and need lots of nurturing.

What’s your favourite part of the evening? When the buses come back at 10pm, because I know that they are back from their evening’s work and parked safely in the Bus Shed.

Please write a brief version of your testimony: I became a Christian after seeing a big change in my wife, and thought ‘I want some of that’. Things have happened in my life: I had ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) for eight years, and I was booked in for an operation, but it was called off because the problem had vanished! God is Good.

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.

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.