Health & Wellbeing

New Community Projects 2024 @ Gorton Monastery, Manchester

Words | Vicki Kennedy

2-minute read

We are really excited to be launching some brand new community projects over the coming months, here at the Monastery. Some of these projects will in partnership with other local and national organisations such as Mentell, Debdale Nature Centre and Gorton Horticultural Society and you’re warmly invited to get involved!

Take a look at some of the wonderful community projects below, all of which are currently in development.

Gorton Men’s Group

Brand new men’s mental heath talking group, based on the Mentell model. We are working with the guys from Mentell to develop our own version of their project.

We have six volunteers already working on this project but always on the lookout for more.

This project will launch on April 28th, 2024.

For more info or to get involved, drop a line to Chris Kennedy on chris.kennedy.gorton@gmail.com

Men’s Shed at the Monastery

Brand new Men’s Shed due to launch at the Monastery in late spring 2024.

The Men’s Shed is a place to socialise, take part in activities and make new friends. The project aims to tackle social isolation predominantly, but not exclusively, in older men, everyone over the age of 18 will be welcome.

This project will launch on April 28th, 2024.

For more info or to get involved, drop a line to Chris Kennedy on mens.shed.monastery@gmail.com or join their brand new Facebook page.

Community Gardening Project

We have ambitious plans to re-green the Monastery site incorporating a kitchen garden, a  native flower garden and a memory garden. We already have a few volunteers signed up for this project but we will always have room for more.

More news coming soon, watch this space!

Monastery Memories Project

Project launching on Belle Vue Day. We are aiming to capture the memories of the people who visit the Monastery or live in the local area. Many of the older generation remember the building in its heyday. We would love to capture these memories before they are lost forever. Eventually we would like to turn the memories into a published book.

This project will launch on April 28th, 2024.

Support Group for Families Living with Neurodivergence

The aim is to support families living with neurodivergence. A space for adults to offload and support each other, a space for children and young people to access activities and help.

We hope to have a trained professional to run some kind of group based therapy/support, and for the young people to take some ownership and develop the group into what they would like it to be, as well as what they feel would be most beneficial to them.

More news coming soon, watch this space!

Volunteer Opportunities

There are volunteer opportunities across all of these projects, so if you, or someone you know might be interested, please feel free to email vicki.kennedy.gorton@gmail.com or chris.kennedy.gorton@gmail.com saying which group interests you and we’ll get right back to you with all the relevant information.

Directions to the Monastery here.