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.

Tags: Bus, Community Action, Headline, Manchester, young people, youth ministry