Legacy
Legacy
Please note: this post is 83 months old and The Cares Family is no longer operational. This post is shared for information only
Walking around Manchester today – with the city’s multiplying glass office blocks, new cocktail bars and brunch hotspots – it’s hard to imagine what the city looked like years ago. Manchester has come a long way from a small settlement of 500, centuries ago, to become the vibrant metropolis that over 540,000 people call home.
Our landscape has been ever changing.
From wooden forts to factories with smoke billowing above the fields, to the creation of housing estates and high rises of the last mid-century, to the modern structures that tower over us now.
Yes, the city that we know, love and call home is changing daily but for our city this is not news – Mancunians have been pioneering for nearly 2,000 years. We are trailblazing – industrious, innovative and initiators.
“What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow” - Sir Robert Peel
Without Manchester the world may have been without submarines, M&S underwear and football leagues. But there is one important thing that made us great – whether it be in politics, science, music, sports or industry.
We did it together and for one another.
Whether you were born and raised a Mancunian, or our city has newly adopted you as one of its own, you have become part of a legacy where we are able to grow, connect and triumph when we have a sense of community linking us to one another and the city.
But an article in The Guardian earlier this month highlighted that the pace of transformation and modern industry could be moving so fast that it is leaving some of us behind. Cities like Manchester “can seem more connected to urban centres elsewhere in the world than they do to towns only 20 or 30 miles distant, and estranged even from neighbourhoods only a short drive away.”
This is true for older neighbours, many of whom have spent a lifetime in their home neighbourhoods, who can struggle to adapt, adjust and find their place in today’s Mancunian communities where once they were central to this growth. And it's true for young people too.
This is why Manchester Cares exists – to bring people from different backgrounds, generations and life experiences together to feel valued, visible and connected so that Manchester is as welcoming to the young professionals arriving to make their mark as the older neighbours who have so much to share.
Over the last few months Manchester Cares has brought together young professionals and older neighbours, who live side-by-side but too infrequently interact, to share laughs, stories and experiences at music nights, theatre trips and photography courses.
As Manchester Cares’ community network grows we’re seeing new friendships blossom between neighbours young and old – like Bethan (25) and Thomas (74) who after years of spending his days alone is “talking to everyone because he knows they want to listen."
We’re excited to keep building this network. And we hope you’ll join us as more and more friendships provide that ever-important connection, even in changing times.