Building an anti-poverty research community

Since the beginning of 2024 the Austerity and Altered Life-Courses team have been working collaboratively with Manchester Central Food Bank, Barlow Moor Community Association and the Dandelion Community to co-produce grassroots collaborations for positive social change in local low-income communities. 

Funded by the UKRI Impact Acceleration Account and supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, this project embeds long-term collaborative working with grassroots leads across Manchester, to re-frame anti-poverty debates in the city to be more creative, progressive and community led. It has strengthened mutually beneficial relationships between the project partners and scoped out possibilities for future collaborations, co-learning and impact.

Our collective activities include the co-creation of resources (see below) and creative workshops to explore difficult social challenges, using tools such as community podcasting and collaborative zine-making. Have a look at some of the zines made at our workshop. 

Resources

How to work together as an anti-poverty research community

Jigsaw graphic with cartoon people holding up pieces of the jigsaw (full pdf version via link in this page)
Our 'Working together' framework

This resource was built from workshops and discussions with collaborators. It highlights the most important values and and most pressing challenges for people and groups working together as an anti-poverty research community. 

 

 

How to nurture our anti-poverty research community

Graphic of cartoon people looking after a tree with text on how to nurture anti-poverty relationships written on leaves - see pdf for full details
Our 'Ways to nurture' resource for policymakers

This resource was built from discussions around working with policy-makers. It identifies four guiding principles for policy-makers during anti-poverty research work. The principles are: Engage; Empower; Support and Invest. 

Making a Difference Award: Outstanding local/civic engagement

The team responsible for our programme of anti-poverty work were winners of a 2024 Making a Difference Award for Outstanding Public Engagement (Local/civic engagement) for bringing together academic and non-academic partners to contribute to anti-poverty work in Greater Manchester and to inspire other inclusive research engagement.