Since January 2024, we have been proudly delivering the Moving Forward Project made possible due to funding through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund Small Grants Programme. The project was designed to offer tailored, one-to-one support to people who were not employed and not actively looking for work.
Through personalised sessions with our Community Projects Team, participants identified goals, developed step-by-step plans to achieve them and worked to reduce any barriers they may have been facing along the way.
Common goals that participants focused on included becoming more social within the community, accessing training courses, and building self-confidence. By the end of the programme in March 2025:
- 55 participants had registered on to the project
- 31 had progressed on to a training course
- 11 had engaged with employability support
- 11 had gone into employment.
To mark the project’s impact, we held a Moving Forward Celebration event on 14th March to celebrate the success of the project and the achievements of the participants who had benefited from the support provided. It was a heartwarming day, with 35 attendees joining in creative activities including canvas painting, journal making and jewellery crafting. A shared lunch gave everyone the chance to chat, connect, share their stories and celebrate their journeys together.
This project was funded by the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund through the North of Tyne Combined Authority and is now administered by the North East Combined Authority in collaboration with Rocket Science.