Helen breathes life into Levenshulme Market
26 Jul 2013
Congratulations to Helen Power, Events Co-ordinator in the Manchester Business School, whose work to revitalise Levenshulme Market has been recognised with a national award.
She has been closely involved with the issues faced by the Levenshulme community so, when Manchester City Council, like so many others in these times of austerity and budget cuts, began to struggle with the running of Levenshulme Market she, along with three other directors, decided to take on the challenge of managing it themselves as a social enterprise.
Helped by a small financial award from UnLtd, which has been working alongside higher education institutions to support social entrepreneurship, the new Levy Market was launched and is currently bucking the trend with its success.
With 50 stalls booked and fundraising increasing from £40 to £400 per month, the money raised is reinvested via training and start-up costs to help new traders who want to take up a stall whilst encouraging people already on the market to move on to bricks and mortar premises.
Helen said, “Now we’re established, we have a strong base of stalls and customers and are really contributing to the high street.”
In addition, Helen was also the recipient of an Achievement Award at the Grand-Prix Final of the Social Enterprise Competition, organized by UMI3 Ltd and Manchester Enterprise Centre (MEC).
Won as a result of her ‘exceptional drive and effort in ensuring the progression of the market in a short space of time with a small amount of money’, this award is enabling the good work to continue.
Helen explained that plans are afoot to revamp a currently underused and user-unfriendly section of the market, overshadowed by a railway bridge. “It’s a bit dark and dingy, so we want to redevelop it as a covered seating area using ethically sourced materials.
“The idea is to commission local school groups to paint murals so it becomes an even stronger community area and a focal point once a month when the market is on. We will also be meeting later in the year to decide the best way of distributing the funds we raise fairly amongst the community.”