North West

The project will research the scope / potential of 3rd sector involvement in widening participation and developing learning opportunities at neighbourhood level. Building a sustainable partnership between the Neighbourhoods & Learning Service and the 3rd sector. Local 3rd sector organisation service users (non-traditional learners) will undertake learning activities in new technologies.

The Transforming Learning grant has allowed Crewe YMCA to start a Football and Life Academy for single homeless and ex homeless young people. The project involves a six week Academy course delivered at a local football centre where young people experience a blend of football coaching sessions blended with ‘pitchside' learning slots around personal development skills such as self-management, teamwork, thinking skills throughout the sessions football is used as a medium for learning.

Eden Mencap are a group of adults who would like to cook healthy meals independently. They all have a learning disability. We are going to make cookery packs with very little maths or writing. They are making DVDs of tehmselves as celebrity chefs to show how to cook the recipes.

Links is a partnership spanning all three sectors.  Gingerbread will deliver workshops hosted by Lancaster District Children's Centres to groups of single parents.  They will learn how to set up Gingerbread friendship groups, through an action learning approach which supports the development of an interactive toolkit, which will be produced by Interactive Web Solutions.  The toolkit will be used by single parents to link single parents locally and nationally through our Gingerbread groups. 

Groundwork's Eco Hub will provide opportunities for adults from a variety of backgrounds to participate in community based horticulture projects from single events to short courses. Groundwork will develop a series of centres for people to access which will form our Eco Hub to help promote horticulture and food growing.

Members of Lancaster and Morecambe U3A will access a range of new learning opportunities with Lancaster University, with the support of the University's Senior Learners Student Society. The project aims to provide a model of how a partnership between a local U3A and a university could work nationally.

Our project will directly target residents in the most deprived SOA wards by taking learning into the heart of the community. It will use innovative learning tasters and activities to widen participation. It will link up with the Neighbourhood Learning Champions project managed by Liverpool Adult Learning Service.

Our project is to give homeless service users in Manchester a taste of web broadcasting technologies, as a tool for user involvement and as a springboard for learning. The sessions will be led by tutors and service user ‘champions' who will be trained up to support their peers in the sessions.

This innovative project will take adult participants on an unforgettable learning journey using public transport to visit museums, galleries and libraries within Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Courses designed around themed travel lines will stop at cultural partner venues en route. For inclusive outreach at its best, it's Just the Ticket!

A partnership project between People's Voice Media and Contour Housing Group to use new technologies to create an informal learning network between geographically disparate communities. The project will train people as Community Reporters, create a wiki for residents to share knowledge, and facilitate Skype chats between communities and housing staff.

This project aims to engage more and more adults in the joy of learning. We will run a wide range of courses and activities in a variety of venues, giving us the opportunity to encourage people to unlock their potential and creativity.

We will use these opportunities to listen to learners and to discuss their fears (of education establishments) and their unfulfilled dreams. On the basis of this information, we will build on the Rotunda`s Ideas Forum whose function is to shape future programmes.

The iLearn project will demonstrate the contribution that informal adult learning can make to re-engaging young, disaffected learners. It will bring together an innovative learning partnership, and provide a variety of learning choices. Participants will gain confidence, and an understanding of virtual learning, creative media technology, and progression routes.

The project provides access to informal learning opportunities to local residents and is a local community anchor. Their setting, a bright modern café environment, offers full, high speed internet access, training rooms and learning resources. The informal atmosphere is designed to ensure access is available to all the local community.

Opportunities for over 500 adult learners from communities in Salford and Greater Manchester to engage with a range of learning activities directed by their own interests, including film making, media technologies, creative projects, social & cultural history and self-development, giving local people a platform to tell their own stories and share experiences.

‘UP FOR ARTS-A TEAM' is a social action radio project that aims to increase engagement in informal learning using active participation in the arts as the lever for transformation. Based within BBC Radio Merseyside the project includes on-air programming, a project helpline, use of the BBC performance space and a wide network of outside broadcast events.