ABOUT US

The need for, and lack of, effective youth and young adult services focused on the Edgeside area of Rossendale, East Lancashire is well known to statutory bodies and voluntary groups.

Several surveys have been conducted and provide clear evidence that local residents consider youth nuisance to be one of their highest concerns, and young people themselves complain about being bored and having little to occupy their time. This has led to the Edgeside area gaining an unfortunate reputation for a higher than average incidence of excessive drinking, domestic violence, exclusions of young people from school, police interventions and the like.

The vision of our project, known as The White Horse Project, is ‘to work with the young people of Rossendale to transform their life chances and opportunities, and enable them to play their full part in this community’. Since the beginning of 2010, a range of youth-oriented activities and services for 11-18 year olds has been delivered in a refurbished industrial unit called THE BOILERHOUSE.

The White Horse Project has gained a high profile in the Rossendale area, to the extent that it gained a ‘Pride in Rossendale’ award as the borough’s best community project of 2009, and also a Mayor of Rossendale Award in 2010.

In 2009, The White Horse Project became a company limited by guarantee, and gained charity status. There are six trustees and a management team comprising a mix of youth leaders and professionals with experience in business management, council services, performing arts, teaching, church leadership and the like.

In order to address the longer-term issue of a lack of space for young people and young adults to learn, develop new skills and generally thrive, this group has identified the need to provide a purpose built premises.

Through discussions with local young people and evaluation of comparable projects operating in the North-West, THE BOILERHOUSE has been used primarily to deliver key services for young people including homework clubs, life skills, training courses (cooking, financial management, building relationship’s etc), personal counselling sessions, creative workshops (e.g. arts and crafts, music, dance etc), social activities and an Internet cafe.

The building has been appropriately allocated for use by young people with activities run during evenings, weekends and school holidays. Statutory bodies (e.g. extended school services) have expressed an interest in using the building to facilitate the better delivery of specialist services to Edgeside and District residents.

OUR STORY

We are proud of the achievements we have made over the past seven years and look forward to future accomplishments that will ultimately benefit the Edgeside and wider communities of Rossendale.

Take a look at our annual reports to get a glimpse of what we have been busy getting up to.