‘Audacious’ youngsters hit the streets of Manchester
Crowds of young people will be arriving in Manchester today (3 August) to take part in the week-long Audacious 09 Christian youth festival.
The event at Manchester Central (formerly G-MEX) is expected to draw around 1,000 youngsters for a mix of conference-style worship, teaching, community action projects across the city and a day-long city centre ‘expo’ event taking place in Spinningfields and Cathedral Gardens.
On Thursday 6 and Friday 7 August, the young people will suit up and ship out to 25 locally-based community projects across the city in an initiative the festival organisers are calling ’10,000 Hours of Hope’. Each project is designed to clean up and improve local areas through clearing rubbish, painting railings, cleaning graffiti and planting gardens.
Projects will take place in Ordsall, Brinnington, Reddish, Kersal, Eccles, Flixton, Langworthy, Bury, Old Trafford, Altrincham, Farnworth, Halliwell, Cheadle, Didsbury, Failsworth, Fitton Hill, Werneth, Greenacres, Northern Moor, Openshaw, Cheetham Hill, Collyhurst and Crumpsall.
“Young people on the streets are usually seen as a bad thing in Greater Manchester,” comments event co-ordinator Alan Saunders. “But this week we want to turn that idea on its head. Young people are making a positive contribution to the city they live in.”
He continues: “The idea behind 10,000 Hours of Hope is simply to show God’s love in action. As we get our hands dirty serving local people in all these different ways, people start asking, ‘Why are you doing it?’ We want to be able to tell them that God cares for their communities and so do we”’
The Audacious festival will culminate in a massive free public event in Manchester’s Cathedral Gardens and Spinningfields on Saturday 8 August. It will feature outdoor sports, live music, street theatre and, for the first time ever in the centre of Manchester, a bungee crane. The day starts at 1pm and everyone is welcome.
Further information from The Message Trust
