Places

The Moss Side Manifesto will be a document of eight rules written by 45 teenagers from the area that they think the community will stick to.

The rules will come out of a discussion session, held by the teens themselves, where they will also talk about the contributions they can make to Moss Side, what future they want for themselves and their families, and what can they do to effect positive change in area.

Once they’ve settled on the rules, the group will take 2,000 laminated copies of the Manifesto back to Moss Side, where they’ll be encouraging people to support it by displaying it in shop windows, school receptions, police stations, takeaways, taxi ranks and other public places.

Reclaiming the streets

The creation of the Moss Side Manifesto is one of a number of initiatives and events being held at Urbis between Monday 15 and Thursday 18 October as part of Reclaim, a project aimed at addressing the problems of the suburb and providing positive role models for its teenagers.

"As an ex-teacher myself, for many years within Moss Side, I am acutely aware of the general lack of aspiration surrounding young people in the area.

"Many of the young people reach national average targets at primary school level but by secondary level, the numbers attaining A-C passes are way below the national average.

"Boys, in particular, need positive male role models with whom they can genuinely relate to. We hope that with the right support, the young people will feel empowered to make a difference and actively change the negative attitude towards Moss Side by reclaiming their community and making sure the future is a positive one."

Your manifesto

So Moss Side will have its own community manifesto, but what about where you live? If you had to write one rule that you would like your community stick to, what would it be?