“When we know each other, we build each other” – the power of international exchange.

These were the words of Rashid, Chair of Muungano Wa Wanavijiji, at the opening session of a week-long international exchange in Nairobi between Muungano and Community Savers leaders from Manchester and Sheffield.
Rashid was sharing on the power of exchanges in the SDI tradition – a tradition that has been nurtured, tested, and adapted over more than thirty years, in 32 countries across the Global South.
November 2022 was a special month as Community Savers leaders were able to welcome activists from Nairobi here in the UK, share knowledge and learning on their adaptation of SDI/Muungano methodologies with postgraduate students in Manchester, and then travel to Nairobi to experience these approaches first hand; visiting settlements and exchanging learning with their sister federation.
Here we try to capture some highlights from a rich month of learning and inspiration…
“We Kenyans, and you from the UK, we are the same.”
Anastasia Wairimu is Chair of Akiba Mashinani Trust one of three organisations that make up the Muungano Alliance. After her second trip to the UK in November 2022 exchanging learning with Community Savers, she recognised that despite very different histories, low-income communities in the UK experience the same dynamics of exploitation and discrimination as informal settlement communities in Kenya.
Tina Cribbin is Chair of Aquarius Community Savers in Hulme, Manchester: these exchanges have enabled Tina and Anastasia to develop a strong relationship of trust and mutual respect, and Tina agreed with Anas’s observations. In particular, Tina noted the similarities in negative attitudes among those holding power and purse strings who judge low-income communities as criminal, as lazy, as a problem that needs fixing.

During her latest visit to the UK, Anastasia was shocked to see how older people are treated after visiting Hopton Court tower block in Hulme where 75% of tenants are aged Over-50 and many have long-term conditions, disabilities and mobility constraints. During their visit, the lifts were out of order again (a regular occurrence over the previous five years) and elderly people had been left with no way of getting out of the block or bringing food shopping up to their flats. Tenants shared how throughout the pandemic they had nowhere to meet with their neighbours due to the absence of a communal area at the block; and how elderly people are falling through the gaps between housing, health and social care services in ways which leave them unable to pay for food, heating or sometimes without appropriate end of life care.
During the Nairobi visit, Ellie and Sue from Miles Platting shared experiences of top-down regeneration and gentrification which resonated strongly with Muungano anti-eviction activists. Leaders reflected that although the extremity of the circumstances are very different the principle of top-down attempts to push lower-income groups away from the inner-city is the same.

During November, leaders from Miles Platting gave urban inequality students a tour of their neighbourhood. They explained to them how the Private Finance Initiative that was supposed to regenerate the area for the existing community has resulted in a net loss of approximately 500 social rental homes and the inflation of house prices and private rents far beyond a threshold that local working families can afford. This is leading to the breaking up of families and people on lower incomes being pushed out to other boroughs of Greater Manchester. Existing residents had agreed to the PFI (including compulsory purchase orders and demolitions) on the basis that a suite of community facilities would be built, including a joint services centre and leisure and retail facilities. In the end, none of this was delivered. The community are now calling on Manchester City Council to protect the public land that these community facilities were supposed to be constructed on for community benefit.

At our final reflection, Jonte shared how an elderly woman housing activist in Kambi Moto who has been involved in their community-led housing movement for over 30 years was amazed to learn that she can sit together with people from the UK, this developed country, and find that they are struggling against the same social issues and can learn from how communities have organised over land and housing in Nairobi.
“Saving is an act of resistance”
Community Savers have been holding learning exchanges with Muungano activists since 2017 and during November’s exchange in Nairobi, Tina explained to Anas that:
“What changed for me was about the savings: I used to feel like I don’t want to save, I want to spend. But you told me that every time you save it is an act of resistance and that has really changed it for me.”
Savings groups are the building blocks of a united and powerful community-led movement for poverty reduction and the transformation of urban social power relations. Tina’s group are now beginning to see the fruits of building power through savings as on return to the UK they had a meeting with the housing provider at Hopton Court (above). The provider issued an official apology for the experiences of older people at the block and announced that they will be replacing the lifts to ensure elderly people are never put in a situation of being trapped in the building again.

Aquarius Community Savers have also been able to build a new coalition of groups in their social housing estate who are coming together to form a new Aquarius Neighbourhood Forum including members of Hulme Tenants Union; Epping Park Warriors; Aquarius Tenants and Residents Association and Age-Friendly Hulme and Moss Side. They have worked closely with their local ward councillors to oppose a private development that would block the sunlight from Hopton Court gardens and put even more pressure on overburdened local services. They are now working with their councillors to request the rezoning of the Aquarius estate out of the city centre planning area and into the Inner South zone in support of a community-led plan for their thriving local community.
“Unity is our strength, Information is our power”
Muungano begin their meetings with call outs to their members “Unity? Is our strength! Information? Is our power!” During the final reflection at Muungano House on 25 November, Anastasia explained that:
“There are 43 tribes in Kenya, but at Muungano we know only two tribes: the haves and the have-nots”
Unity is critical to addressing this inequality.
We reflected on the importance of collective solutions and collective thinking. We discussed how in the UK people have become individual clients of government and service providers. Although it is good to have a social welfare system, it is provided in a way that has made people become passive. Tina observed that “it is given but it is never what you would have asked for. Now we are learning to ask for what we need.”
We reflected on the power of community data and also the value of university partnerships even though universities generally represent the “Haves”. Nicerah from Kibera shared how after she joined Muungano and began collecting data in her settlement, officials were asking her “How can you know how to make these survey questions on your own? What university did you go to?” Nicerah was able to tell them “My University is Muungano”.
Emily, a national leader from Mathare, explained how at the same time, Muungano has developed partnerships with university departments and their students. Students can help them to collect data and write up reports. This is not because the community cannot do it without their help, but it is about recognising that these students may be the next Planning Officer or Water and Sanitation official in the future: “If we teach them now, they may come back to us in the future”.
Validation is a critical step in the process: presenting the data collected back to the community through public meetings to enable them to correct inaccuracies and build a sense of ownership over the information and the change that the information makes possible.
Earlier in the week, as we began our learning exchange, Nancy explained that data collection underpins everything for Muungano: “we have to know ourselves” and this is the principle underpinning Know Your City TV…
Know Your City TV: “We can change the story”
One of the most inspiring engagements for UK activists during their week in Nairobi was with the Youth Federation leaders involved in data collection, advocacy, and Know Your City TV.
Through KYCTV young people are engaged in community action by creating opportunities for them to learn skills they are interested in like film-making and photography while leaders also engage youth through art, music and sports.
The UK team took home the principle of “Just One” – you only need one engaged young person to start a youth movement. That one person will be able to engage other young people.
UK delegates were inspired by their inclusive approach involving arts and sports and participatory approaches and tools for engagement and planning – especially the Tree of Transformation which enabled young people in Mukuru to come together for visioning of the changes they wanted to see and the conditions that they needed to foster to achieve those changes.

Georgie from Arbourthorne asked the youth leaders what made them engage with Muungano and KYCTV as it can be hard to engage young people in the UK who say “nothing ever changes”. They explained that they grew up in the settlements and they saw politicians come and go with promises that they never delivered on. They recognised Muungano’s message that we have the solutions and we know our community best. We were tired of all the negative representations in the media and decided that with the training they were offering we can change the story.
Younger youths were inspired and motivated by older youth mentors who they looked up to. The older leaders explained that they put their trust in the young people to carry out data gathering and document Federation processes; and importantly they show them love and nurture them. The leaders focus on what the young people themselves are interested in and what they want to learn and: “Give them a chance to be who they are”.
They advised the UK team: “try to spot the ones with ambitions, start with them, find the youth that want change, show them the opportunities, show them a better way of life”.
Exchanges such as these between grassroots communities across different international contexts are critical for enabling communities to recognise their expertise and the commonalities of their experiences, struggles and strength within global and urban systems which act to exploit and oppress them. Yet they resist, they organise, and they grow stronger, smarter, and more effective through global solidarity networks: when they know each other, they build each other.
Women take the lead on poverty action in Wythenshawe

Women of Wythenshawe or ‘WoW’, is a new women-led poverty action network in Manchester made up of women’s organisations who say enough is enough. WoW has been awarded £500,000 by The Smallwood Trust for an innovative three-year programme to build a women-led poverty action network from the bottom up across the Wythenshawe area.
Women will be supported to share their knowledge and experience and to identify common areas for action on gendered poverty in the neighbourhood, developing strategies for systems changes that will reduce disadvantage and make significant improvements to women’s ability to thrive. Mums Mart Savers have played an important role in establishing the network, engaging in community exchanges across Wythenshawe, while CLASS will convene the network and work closely with local support agencies to enable women’s participation across at least ten different groups.
Women will be in the lead while able to call on the support of trusted local agencies when they require that help, such as bringing in key decision-makers to identify channels for influence and change. These include Executive Director of Wythenshawe Community Housing Group, Paul Seymour and Mike Kane MP.
Reflections from WoW members:
“We are so excited to be part of the Women of Wythenshawe network all the women in our group are excited about it. We have a lot that we need to share and we need to bring our voices out there.”
Ruth, Know Africa Foundation
“Our group is beautiful! We come together and make food and do activities and try to practice speaking English. WoW is a good idea for us because we need to do more activities with English speakers, but we can also share the different ideas we have – we can give each other good ideas to help each other.
Narjes, Well Women refugee support project
We have been in the Wythenshawe area for 13 years supporting carers of adults or children with learning disabilities and autism. We are really excited to be part of the WoW network because there are so many families that we work with that we want to support to have a louder voice. Many of our mums will be passionately involved in this piece of work over the next three years. It’s going to be a fantastic opportunity, also to meet with other groups in our area and become stronger by working together.
Emma, Lifted Carers Centre
Wythenshawe has had millions of pounds of regeneration funding invested over the past twenty years’ but poverty persists in many areas. WoW recognises that solutions and approaches need to be developed in partnership but from the bottom up. That means people bringing their experiences together from the individual and household level into a collective problem-solving space that is led by those directly affected.
WoW unites grassroots women around the place where they live and their common experiences, while bringing together a wide diversity of experiences and backgrounds including women of different ages, abilities, ethnicities and experiences. Wythenshawe has extremely high rates of domestic abuse (significantly higher than those for Manchester and England) and survivors are also represented.
Wherever you go in the world, poverty is gendered. As mothers, carers, low-income workers, and survivors, women shoulder an unequal burden of poverty while providing the social safety nets that hold communities together.
In the UK, it is women who have been disproportionately impacted by austerity policies, by COVID, and now by the current economic crisis (www.wbg.org.uk).
Paul Seymour said:
We are looking forward to supporting the WoW network as it evolves. We are really excited to be involved in this initiative that we believe could be the start of something transformational for women in Wythenshawe.
The Cost of Living Crisis in Aquarius Tower Blocks

“I am having to reduce the quality of food, so I only buy fruit and vegetables at the weekend. Then I can survive on flour-based cooking.”
From 11-16 July, a coalition of organisations in the Aquarius Estate in Hulme, carried out a survey across six tower blocks in response to the mounting cost of living crisis.
Community leaders from a dedicated network of groups including Aquarius Community Savers, Aquarius TARA, Epping Street Warriors, and Hulme Tenants Union spent six days knocking on every door across the six blocks and distributing 350 booklets detailing Support & Services available to tenants & residents in Hulme.
Tenants were supported by CLASS and GMTU. Their aims were:
- to signpost residents to the range of support services available to them in Hulme;
- to link as many people as possible into local solidarity and support initiatives;
- to carry out a survey which would take a temperature test of the impacts of rising costs after stories had emerged of people already struggling to pay for electric and food.
83 surveys were completed in total including 13 with residents of the St Georges and Aquarius estates who attend On Top of the World Project’s Seanchai café at the Aquarius Centre on Wednesdays.
Key Findings
The findings fit into four broad areas: the impact of rising costs, problems with housing, access to the doctors and other medical services, and access to services and information, particularly around money and debt.
Despite surveying the blocks in the middle of July, over a third of participants were already having to cut back on food and energy use, and some were already skipping meals.
38% described their financial situation as ‘finding it quite difficult’ or ‘finding it very difficult’ while 35% said they were ‘just about getting by’.
“I am using the shower at the local leisure centre so I don’t have to use my shower at home. I only shop at ALDI as it is cheapest. I don’t have anything switched on except the kettle and the TV. I cook after 11pm as the electric is cheaper at that time.”
In discussions with residents, many said they couldn’t access the services they need. 12% of participants said they cannot access the local services they need this year. 35% of participants said they can only sometimes access the services they need this year. Only 31% of respondents said they can usually access the services they need.
The three most common services that were raised in conversations with tenants were housing, doctors surgeries, and money advice – including debt advice.
“My main difficulty is getting repairs done. Like our toilet. There was a leak from the ceiling from the flat above, and about 2 or 3 months ago they sent a surveyor around. But still now, no-one has come back to repair it, and we are living here with two young children.“
While the most significant drivers of the cost of living crisis are national and global in nature, community leaders in Aquarius believe that through local collective action and appropriate collaboration between local agencies, the worst impacts of the crisis could be avoided. Over the coming weeks, GMTU and CLASS will be supporting tenants to use these findings to approach a range of local agencies and explore ways to ensure Aquarius tower block tenants and residents are supported through the difficult winter ahead.
You can access the full report here.
Quotes shared within this article were recorded as close to verbatim as possible during tenant-led interviews for the cost of living survey exercise.
Introducing…

We are really happy to introduce Dr Vicky Simpson as Network Development Coordinator at CLASS!
Vicky began work with us part-time in April this year and is supporting Community Savers groups with financial governance, digital skills and coordinating network-wide meetings and events.
We asked Vicky what interested her in working with CLASS and Community Savers and what she has most enjoyed about her role so far:
“When I am not working for CLASS I am a Research Manager at the Urban Institute, University of Sheffield. Community Savers grew out of an action research partnership which ran from 2017-2019 called Community-led Organising: Seeing from the South so I knew a bit already about the great work they were doing. This included learning exchanges with the South African and Kenyan affiiates of Shack/Slum Dwellers International and experimentation with their social movement methodology. I was interested in the role at CLASS as the ideas of that original project have now become even more developed and I was really happy to take on a role that would support that process.
I think the work that Community Savers are doing is really important. A couple of years ago I was involved in a local campaign in my community to save land from large scale housing development. From a small group of local residents, the Dane Bank Green Space group was formed, and after years of negotiation with the local council, the group won its fight and was handed a long-term lease to retain the space. Last month Dane Bank Group Space officially opened to the community with its fishing ponds, wild garden meadow and forest school. Having direct experience of how powerful community action can be attracted me to this role with CLASS.
I have been in post for about 5 months now, and looking back I am amazed with all the activities I have been involved with already. For example, I have worked with the groups to identify and addresss ICT equipment and skills development needs; I have visited all the savings groups at their community meetings and we have begun to strengthen our relationships; helped coordinate a learning exchange of the UK Savers to our colleagues at Muungano Wa Wanvijiji in Nairobi and attended a 3-day retreat with all the teams in Snowdonia. In addition, working at CLASS has enabled me to develop my own skills and knowledge: in five months I have already joined in with Community Savers training on accounting, small grants funding and First Aid!
The community sector is fast-paced and sometimes a little overwhelming, but massively inspiring. I am in awe of the Savers leaders that I have had the privilege to meet and work with. They are unpaid volunteers, and I am amazed at how many different community projects and initiatives that they are involved with that benefit their communities. I love the ethos of the Savers Groups as they are women-led and bolster those from working CLASS communities that have been disadvantaged over time. As my own personality lends towards being supportive and wanting to be helpful, I think I fit into the groups well and like the idea of helping community members develop their own ideas. I have enjoyed the face-to-face interaction with all the Savers and meeting lots of strong, dynamic, funny, knowledgeable and caring women. Seeing the groups being supportive to each other inspires me to want to be a better person.
Having just returned to work after a quieter period over the summer, I am excited about the future. The next couple of months will soon pick up pace. For example, we are supporting the savings committees to move from paper records to digital accounts; we are recruiting a new cohort of digital inclusion volunteers to support the groups with ICT skills; and I am looking forward to meeting Kenyan colleagues from Muungano Wa Wanavijiji when they visit Manchester in October.
Community-led development and climate action in Miles Platting

In 2019, members of Miles Platting Savers travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, for a five-day learning exchange with leaders of Muungano Wa Wanavijiji. Together with delegates from Sharston and Brinnington, they were inspired by the way that housing activists had brought their communities together to gather data, map their settlement and set priorities. From there, they worked with local government to ensure people’s needs were recognised and local services and infrastructure were improved. The Manchester groups visited community-led housing projects and community build schemes and saw how co-financing could achieve local ownership over community facilities, protecting and maintaining community assets.
On their return, Miles Platting Savers began to create a map of their neighbourhood tracing the history of their area and the positive and more challenging impacts of ongoing regeneration. This was undertaken with other local residents and members of Community Grocers, working with researchers from the University of Sheffield.
Community conversations revealed that there was widespread anxiety among residents about the rapid changes taking place around them. In response, in November 2019, Miles Platting Savers called a meeting of local community groups to explore how to work more effectively together and ensure local residents had regular access to information about the neighbourhood.
At this meeting, Miles Platting Community Network was born – strengthened in 2021 by a merger with Miles Platting Age-friendly Neighbourhoods Board to become:
Miles Platting Community & Age-friendly Network: MP-CAN!
In just three years, and in the midst of multiple crises, this collective of local community leaders has achieved amazing things together. Here’s a snapshot of their brilliant community action…
Miles Platting PFI: a brief history
To understand how and why MPCAN have become such a force for good in their neighbourhood, a brief history of the regeneration that residents have been living through is needed.
In March 2007, Manchester City Council (MCC) handed over the maintenance and management of nearly 3,000 homes in Miles Platting to the Renaissance Miles Platting consortium on a 30-year contract. Costing £160m in government funding, plus a comparable amount invested by the private sector (to be paid back to private investors over the 30-year contract period), the plan was to refurbish up to 1,500 council homes in the area and build an additional 1,000 homes for direct sale on the market, while demolishing 300 more as part of the redesign of the estate. Importantly – alongside the PFI contract – the council also developed a funding partnership for a Joint Services Centre including partners such as the NHS and Adactus Housing Association (now Jigsaw Homes). The centre was to include a range of NHS services, including three GP practices and a pharmacy, as well as a community hub incorporating: a new library, new sports facilities, advice and information services, services for young people, and spaces for community, recreation and leisure use.
The area at the intersection of Oldham Street and Varley Street was also intended to host retail facilities and a replacement swimming pool. The original swimming pool and library were demolished under the PFI regeneration.

Unfortunately, the 2008 financial crisis led to funding for the replacement community facilities being cut. The community were left with none of the community facilities that were supposed to be introduced and have to date experienced the demolition of 240 homes for social rent with only 22 replaced.
Happily, the council have retained ownership of the land where the joint services centre and community hub were supposed to be located. MPCAN are now advocating for the development of community facilities or housing for social rent on this site.
MPCAN in action 1: Data gathering, mapping and visioning
Within this context, the first stages of MPCAN’s work were to gather information about neighbourhood change over time and map out losses and new developments across the neighbourhood.
MPCAN were supported by URBED and CLASS to carry out a consultation with local residents about priorities for the area alongside existing plans under the PFI. This built on all the fantastic consultation and prioritising work carried out by the Age-Friendly Neighbourhoods board from 2016-2018.
URBED then supported leaders with mapping and land registry searches to identify which areas of Miles Platting were managed under the PFI contract and to understand land ownership and development plans on remaining sites.

This highlights residents’ priorities for the future of the neighbourhood and potential sites where new community facilities could be developed or community-led improvements could be made in partnership with local agencies and authorities.
MPCAN in action 2: Climate Action
From 2020, the momentum shifted to action and one of the first achievements of MPCAN was to successfully register Shetland Road Green as an Asset of Community Value with the City Council with support from local councillors.
This created the impetus to think in more depth about how to achieve the ‘improve our green spaces’ priority from the network vision. At an URBED-facilitated ‘Green Infrastructure’ workshop in November 2021 leaders established the MPCAN Climate Action Group (CAG) which has three key objectives:
- Conservation: ecological survey and ‘citizen science’ wildlife recording, followed by habitat creation and inter-linking
- Canal upgrading: cutting back and beautification of overgrown areas to encourage more walking and cycling; planter construction and wildflower planting to develop ‘green fingers’ into and out of the canal-way
- Protection, improvement and development of green and wild spaces including tree protection and planting, wildflower meadow patches and ‘rivers of flowers’ for bees and butterflies
Supported by Jenna Ashton (Creative Climate Resilience, University of Manchester) and Ash Farrah (MCC Climate Change Officer), the CAG have created a map of 20 green or disused sites across the area for surveying and potential improvements and have action-planned around five of these sites since February 2022.
Dot Lomax, a local resident and community leader explains:
“We do ‘neighbourhood walkabouts’ – so we go and visit somewhere and door-knock the houses around that site to chat with people about how it’s used and what people would like to see. It means we can meet people and let them know who we are as well – and then we make some plans for that site and ask people what they think.”

Members are now working with the Canal and River Trust, and Lancashire Wildlife Trust on ecology surveys and citizen science activities to identify local species and develop plans for appropriate habitat creation and wildlife corridors through the neighbourhood, and with Groundwork, Creative Climate Resilience project (University of Manchester), and Jigsaw Homes on green space improvements.
Ellie Trimble a local resident and Rector shares reflections on the first of these sessions led by Russell Hedley at Lancashire Wildlife Trust:
“It was so lovely spending time in one of our remaining green spaces as Russell completed an inventory of wildlife and native plants. We all learnt such a lot and had fun at the same time, especially our young families who ran around very excited to point out many different butterflies including some that Russell was very pleased to see so close to the city.
We learnt that some of the wildflowers that we thought were weeds are the reason we have so many butterflies which is great news as we all know weeding is hard work!
The children didn’t like the wasps that were swarming around one plant in the garden until we learnt that they were honeybees which was amazing and far more welcome. What is even more amazing, is that since that event, some of the children have been visiting the garden every evening to water the plants.”
Ash Farrah, Climate Change Officer for Manchester City Council shared:
“It’s a pleasure to support the MP-CAN Climate Action Group, the commitment and enthusiasm from the group’s members is clear to see at every meeting. To my knowledge, MP-CAN CAG is the only climate-focused community group in all of North Manchester. They are leading the way.”
MPCAN in action 3: St Cuthberts Action Group
This group was established by St Cuthbert’s Parochial Church Council after a long process of assessment and reflection within the church concluded that the building was in too great a state of disrepair and needed to be redeveloped.
The PCC resolved to work in partnership with MPCAN leaders and local residents on a community-led redevelopment of the St Cuthberts site. The PCC aim to retain a space for worship while achieving their Mission Action Plan to nurture and support their parishioners and the local community, especially in matters of social justice and reducing deprivation and exclusion.
The early stages of this work are being match-funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and an invitation to tender for project management services has recently been advertised.
The first step will be an extensive neighbourhood-wide consultation on the facilities that local residents would most value and ensuring that as diverse a set of residents as possible are able to share their ideas and any anxieties or concerns.
Leaders from the action group are now going out on visits to community hubs and mixed-use social centres across Manchester to gather ideas and inspiration. Most recently, they had a fantastic visit to The Carlton Club in Whalley Range to learn about the journey of initiating and developing a community-run social venue. MPCAN are looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship with committee members at the Carlton Club and hopefully many others along the way who can offer guidance and moral support as they embark on their own exciting project!

Anne Worthington, a long-term resident and community leader said:
“I think the work MPCAN is doing with regards to the St Cuthberts site is SO important. With the support of the PCC, we hope that along with a space for worship, a valuable community social space can be created to replace the existing church building which is sadly in poor shape. Visiting other community ventures is really inspiring.”
If you would like to find out more or connect with MPCAN please email: milesplattingcommunitynetwork@gmail.com.
Surveys for Social Justice: Ageing well in place in inner city Manchester

“I am most proud of being part of Community Savers because I know I am in a movement based on social justice. It’s also the place I’ve been challenged the most but also learned the most.” Tina Cribbin, community activist and member of Aquarius Community Savers.
This is the story of how a women-led social movement methodology from the Global South has enabled older tower-block tenants in inner-city Manchester to address health and social inequalities experienced by elderly people living in the heart of the city.
Activists affiliated to Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) have been visiting Manchester to teach at the Global Development Institute on an annual basis since 2011. As a movement that has proliferated across cities of the Global South through community-to-community learning exchange, they soon requested to meet with community organisations and projects during their visits. SDI affiliates always seek out opportunities to learn from other communities about their experiences and strategies for addressing situations of disadvantage.
In March 2016, these exchanges catalysed something exciting and transformative: the first SDI-style savings group was established in Manchester organised by Mums Mart community association in Wythenshawe. Once the torch was lit, the fire spread quickly. Partnership between the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester and the Realising Just Cities programme and University of Sheffield enabled a series of international visits from community leaders in Greater Manchester to first the South African, and then the Kenyan SDI affiliate, to take place.
Six years later, and despite the hurdles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is now a network of five neighbourhood-based savings initiatives spanning Manchester, Stockport and Sheffield. Community Savers is supported by Community Led Action and Savings Support, which helps to facilitate the savers network, establish new groups, and continues to support leaders to exchange with their Kenyan mentor federation Muungano Wa Wanavijiji.
Community Savers groups have made amazing progress supporting their communities through the pandemic, developing poverty reduction projects and innovations, and increasingly developing new visions and partnerships for their neighbourhoods which can address the long-term disadvantage experienced in some of the lowest-income neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester and Sheffield.
One of the most exciting new partnerships to emerge from their efforts is the Ageing Well in Place in Hulme initiative which brings together tenants, their housing provider, the Manchester Local Care Organisation, local voluntary and community sector organisations and two universities to co-produce solutions for elderly and vulnerable tower block tenants living in the Aquarius estate, in inner-city Manchester. The impact has been so profound that one of the leading tenants’ group, Aquarius Community Savers, have recently been nominated for a University of Manchester Making a Difference Award.
Here, Tina Cribbin, long-term Hulme activist and member of Aquarius Community Savers shares her experiences of adapting the idea of enumeration and profiling from the SDI toolkit for her group’s own local purposes.
When I first came into contact with Community Savers, I had been active in the community for thirty years from being employed as a youth worker, social worker, women’s support officer and many more that were unpaid.
Over time, I learned that if I tell my truth and my community’s truth through art, people are more likely to accept what I am saying. I published a poetry collection called Classphemy, wrote a play Can you hear me from up here? through On Top of the World project, and set up two writing groups including Hulme Writers, which I run through On Top of the World.
These creative activities have been focused on speaking truth to power about the negative impact of university and inner-city expansion and gentrification on my community.
You can imagine what my thoughts were when I was approached by Sophie King (Director of CLASS), who was at the time a university academic, to participate in a gathering called “inner-city exchange”. Universities held lots of negative connotations in Hulme as they have basically taken up the land where we used to have social housing and community facilities. I had zero interest in working with another academic. So much so, that I even wrote her a poem about why.
Sophie recognised my sceptism about academics and asked Sharon Davis from Mums Mart to come and talk to me about Community Savers. I now know that this is how Community Savers operates – community to community, woman to woman. Sharon spoke my language and I felt safe that I wasn’t dishonouring my community by participating.
I was able to totally grasp what the community savings were about and the history of how it grew out of exchanges with Shack/Slum Dwellers International federations as Sharon had already been to learn from community activists in South Africa and Kenya. It made sense – it was much more than a savings group it’s a social movement that is run by women not so different from me. I, like every woman on the planet, know that the personal is the political. Every penny saved is an act of resistance and challenge to those who control our lives worldwide.
It was impossible not to want to be a part of something so amazing!
I was so impressed when I met Anastacia Wairimu (see header photo) who is a lifelong leader of the movement in Kenya and who came to visit us in Hulme in 2019. It made me realise just how big the movement is. And how organised they were in their communities. Anastacia showed me clear examples of how the movement worked with women to finally getting their own homes constructed, getting roads built, getting electricity and water. It inspired us when she talked about collecting information as evidence to bring to the authorities. Although we lived worlds apart, we were together in being resistant to inequality and understanding that working together as women, we can bring change.
Inspired
Inspired from Anastascia’s visit, and together with On Top of the World Project where we run a weekly drop in with older tenants, we began to think about the issues facing our community and particularly tenants at Hopton Court where I live, and where 75% of tenants are aged 50 and over. We knew that many of these tenants were in vulnerable or difficult circumstances and often had poor health but were not receiving the care they needed. We were aware that some people were hiding their frailty for fear of being moved away from the place they call home. There was a lot of isolation and nowhere for us to come together during the pandemic.
CLASS supported us to develop a partnership with two academics at the University of Manchester (MICRA) and MMU (MSA), and our housing provider One Manchester. We did some interviews with tenants and other people like local GPs which enabled us to get an overview of some of the challenges tenants were facing. However, this only captured the experiences of a handful of tenants.
With support from a PhD researcher at the University of Manchester, Whitney Banyai-Becker, we were able to get some social responsibility funding to take forward a tenant-led survey of our whole block.
This was different to other research projects I’ve been involved in because the actual questions were designed by the tenants themselves. We felt ownership of the project. We worked with Whitney and Sophie to co-design the whole thing. We were able to share our expertise about how to approach our neighbours and what would be needed to encourage their participation, also about safety and protecting people’s privacy and confidentiality – we know our own community well and we knew what people’s concerns would be ahead of time. Whitney and Sophie could share more of the academic side and make things systematic, ensuring information was recorded systematically and that surveys were written up and analysed, which meant they could do the report writing at the other end of the process.
We began by talking with residents about what changes they would like to see at the block, but the questionnaire covered wider areas such as access to services, social isolation, health and wellbeing and feelings of connectedness. We were a bit pessimistic when starting because many people didn’t answer their doors. But we kept going at different times and once people got the idea that it was their neighbours trying to make improvements, they were willing to engage with us. We got over 50% response rate which far exceeded our expectations.
Although Sophie and Whitney were there for support, it was tenant-led which gave us the drive and motivation to do right by our neighbours. Furthermore, it gave me and other residents something we had not had before – hope. I felt Anastacia and all the African sisters with me. Whilst I was walking at night in the rain, I realised they were probably doing the same. It gave me strength (read the poem I wrote about this here).
Positive changes
Since doing the survey, life has completely changed at Hopton Court.
We’ve formed a steering group to establish something called a ‘Naturally Occurring Retirement Community’ or ‘NORC’ at our block and for the benefit of tenants in neighbouring blocks. We’re working closely with One Manchester who have employed a full-time Independent Living Advisor with support from Manchester Local Care Organisation. Now there’s someone ensuring that older tenants are getting access to the support and services that they need to ‘age well in place’.
A new community hut is going to be constructed in our shared garden area, so that we’ll always have somewhere to socialise together and access information and support – even in the winter months when it is too cold to sit outside together. This is a participatory design project through which One Manchester will work with tenants to create a new age-friendly facility for our estate. A lot of assets like this have been lost to regeneration and university expansion, so it will be good to bring something new which will be really valued by older people locally.
One Manchester are also about to employ a ‘NORC’ Development Worker to really get our retirement community idea underway. They’ll be working in partnership with our growing group of older tenants called Aquarius Community Savers and with On Top of the World and other age-friendly groups and projects in Hulme to address the challenges older people face in our community.
We’ve been working on this initiative for over two years now. Learning, planning, designing, learning to trust the process and learning to trust ourselves, realising that we’re able and should be part of those meetings.
The path to change does not run smooth
Sophie asked me what has changed and what am I proud of…
I think what has changed is that it’s been at times an uncomfortable cultural shift for people at One Manchester, learning to trust us and work with us tenants as equal partners.
And certainly, from the residents’ side, we have learned to trust, respect and work with them in a way that just wasn’t there before. Trust is fragile and will always need work to maintain it.
What I think every person needs to learn is how power structures work. Now when I’m working in the community, if something is not as it should be, I won’t hesitate to take it higher – you have to work around those who may not understand what you are trying to achieve or have the power to work with you to achieve it. You can’t work upwards through straight lines and sometimes you need to go backwards or press pause before you can go forwards again. I can definitely tell you it works.
I am proud of my community for being part of these changes.
I am most proud of being part of Community Savers because I know I am in a movement based on social justice. It’s also the place I’ve been challenged the most, but also learned the most. I’ve learned to work smarter, not harder. In November, I will be visiting Anastascia and other Muungano Wa Wanavijiji members in Nairobi together with some of the other Community Savers leaders. I am so excited to finally get to Africa and meet my African sisters and learn from them, whilst being able to share our learning from Hulme. I want to see how they carry out collections, what women are saving for, and the amazing changes that they are bringing for their own communities there.
When CLASS became GLASS by Tina Cribbin

I came as usual waxing cynical
Years of being invisible
Leaves no space for hope or
Trust
Over cups of tea and laughter
Or just a quiet chat
I found out so much more
About my community
Because it was the COMMUNITY
Gathering the facts
We ploughed on regardless
Of day-to-day life
We made new knowledge
In a co-produced fight
My cynicism dropped
After the first knock on the door
A tentative nervous smile
Eyes that held loneliness
And depths of despair
Yet he wanted to thank me
For showing we cared!?
Eyes now left with the glimmer of hope
Hold on to your tin of little wins
The precious steps we take
Remember them moments
It gets you through tough days
Learning to trust the process
Was the hardest thing for me
Having faith in academics
Didn’t come easily
But as we worked
I saw my own prejudgements
Was clouding the view
I fought through my entrenched beliefs
It unveiled a clearer picture
It was the day that CLASS became glass
Giving hope a hook to hang upon
Filling in the holes lost in
Scarred Souls
WE had work to do
I knocked on doors as
the sun was setting
I hear the pitter patter of
my heavy tired footsteps
I thought of my African sisters
Doing exactly that
I felt a connection that
was bigger than the sky
I could hear you singing
We must try
Together we are women who
Light up the sky
We return to fight injustice
Just as the certainty of tides
I am proud to be part of an
Army of wise women warriors
Watch the power unfurl
As we get together
With ALL my sisters
Who already hold up
Half the world
(Tina Cribbin, 2021)
Tired by Tina Cribbin

We are so tired…
Tired out from being harvested
About our “stories”
How the vultures from the art,
Academia, policy makers too
Want to engage with us
Sit down and have a brew
Listening, dissecting explaining
All the while claiming their latest
Art, Plan and Research paper.
You are no different from the property developers
That come and break up an already functional
Well-equipped community.
We don’t need your “expertise”,
Thank you for the opportunity.
I think a conference is what’s needed with
These “lower income groups”.
So we can take notes watching
The bleeding all the while scheming
Would this be a great hook for my latest book?
But I’m learning too
I’m learning to see behind the doublespeak.
I seek the truth behind your deceit.
I will record your every experience
Your horror and shock.
As I turn what you do on its head
Did you know I can write too!
In my latest book there will be an inscription
To those who inspired, those that just took
So thanks for your interest
We are learning to say no.
We are capable enough to create our own show.
On our terms, where no one redefines our truth.
Listen out for us, we plan to raise the roof.
(From Classphemy, 2019).
We are recruiting!

CLASS has two exciting new roles available to support the deepening and broadening of the Community Savers network, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and the Tudor Trust.
We are recruiting a full-time Senior Development Worker and a part-time Finance and Operations Manager: please read on for further details and consider helping us achieve our aims by circulating these exciting opportunities through your networks!
Senior Development Worker **Deadline extended to Monday 14 March**
Community Led Action and Savings Support (CLASS) is looking for a Senior Development Worker to join our small and dynamic team.
CLASS is a charitable support agency for Community Savers: a network of majority women-led and neighbourhood-based community groups who are reducing poverty and inequality in our neighbourhoods, towns, and cities.
This is an exciting opportunity to make a significant contribution to community-driven development and wellbeing in North Manchester: supporting community associations to realise collective visions for their local areas; and deepening and broadening the reach and impact of the Community Savers network.
You will work in alliance with the Community Savers leadership, members of Miles Platting Community and Age-Friendly Network (MP-CAN), the CLASS Director, and other local partners to take forward plans for the protection and improvement of green space, the development of local community facilities, and capacity-building and skills-development of local community leaders. You will develop new relationships and connections across Manchester in support of regular community learning exchange and the mobilisation of new savings groups and associational networks.
About you:
You will be passionate about social justice and championing community expertise and have a compassionate, non-judgemental approach to working with others. You will have a strengths-based orientation with considerable drive, energy and determination to succeed.
Other knowledge, skills and experience you will need include but are not limited to:
- An excellent working knowledge of the context for community working in neighbourhoods where people have experienced long-term economic, social and political exclusion.
- Experience of translating resident/community-led ideas and visions into practical projects that deliver improvement.
- Experience of networking with statutory and non-statutory organisations to create new opportunities for resident-led community groups.
- Excellent active listening and interpersonal skills including conflict mediation.
- Experience of taking an enabling approach to the facilitation of resident-led community meetings, projects and partnerships.
About the role:
Job Title: Senior Development Worker
Salary: £27,741 – £29,577
Working commitment: Full-time
Contract: Fixed term for 2 years
Location: Working from home or in community settings in Greater Manchester
Benefits:
- 28 days annual leave in addition to public holidays
- Attractive workplace pension scheme
- Flexible employer sensitive to the needs of today’s workforce
- Commitment to continued professional development
This work will involve regular local travel and occasional national travel.
If you have the knowledge, skills and experience we need to advance our social justice goals then we would love to hear from you.
We particularly welcome applications from under-represented women; including women from working-class backgrounds; Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women; and women with disabilities.
If you require any reasonable adjustments to any stage of our recruitment and selection process, please email us at recruitment@class-uk.com. The application pack and form can be made available on request in alternative formats, where reasonable and practical.
>Download Application Pack
>Download Application Form
Please contact recruitment@class-uk.com to request an application pack by email.
Please note that CVs will not be accepted.
In accordance with CLASS policy and relevant legislation we will ask the successful candidate to be screened by the Disclosure and Barring Service. However, a criminal record will not necessarily be a bar to your being able to take up the job.
Finance and Operations Manager
(Now closed to applications)
Community Led Action and Savings Support (CLASS) is looking for a Finance and Operations Manager to join our small and dynamic team. This is an interesting and varied role with attractive benefits.
CLASS is a charitable support agency for Community Savers: a network of majority women-led and neighbourhood-based community groups who are reducing poverty and inequality in our neighbourhoods, towns, and cities.
This is an exciting opportunity to make a significant impact on the growth and development of CLASS and the Community Savers network by ensuring we have the financial and operational systems in place to remain agile and effective in our provision of support and community benefit as the Community Savers network expands.
You will work closely with the CLASS Director, the Board of Trustees and the Community Savers leadership to plan, manage and monitor annual and project budgets, prepare management accounts, manage our day-to-day operations including policy review and implementation, and provide capacity-building support on financial governance to community groups.
About you:
You will have a commitment to advancing social justice, a compassionate co-working approach, and excellent attention to detail. Other experience and skills you will need include:
- Management-level accounting experience within a charity setting including processing payroll and pension contributions.
- AAT Level 3 qualification or above, or equivalent professional experience.
- Sound technical knowledge of current accounting regulations, and accounting software such as Xero and Quickbooks or similar.
- Ability to present financial information in a clear and concise manner to non-financial colleagues and community groups.
- Experience of monitoring, evaluation and reporting for charitable projects, and organisational policy development.
- Experience of developing effective systems for human resource management.
- Experience of supervising volunteers.
- Ability to work quickly and accurately under time pressure.
About the role:
Position: Finance and Operations Manager
Location: Greater Manchester (home-working desirable)
Salary: £11,097-£11,831 (£27,741-£29,577 pro rata)
Working commitment: 15 hours per week
Contract: Fixed term for two years
Closing Date: 5pm, Friday 4 March 2022
Interviews: Wednesday 23 or Thursday 24 March 2022
Benefits:
- 28 days annual leave in addition to public holidays (on a pro-rata basis)
- Attractive workplace pension scheme
- Flexible employer sensitive to the needs of today’s workforce
- Commitment to continued professional development
This work will involve some local travel within Greater Manchester and occasional national travel.
If you have the commitment, skills, and experience to develop and manage the financial and operational systems we need to advance our social justice goals then we would love to hear from you.
We particularly welcome applications from under-represented women; including women from working-class backgrounds; Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women; and women with disabilities.
If you require any reasonable adjustments to any stage of our recruitment and selection process, please email us at recruitment@class-uk.com. The application pack and form can be made available on request in alternative formats, where reasonable and practical.
>Download Application Pack
>Download Application Form
Please contact recruitment@class-uk.com to request an application pack by email.
Please note that CVs will not be accepted.
In accordance with CLASS policy and relevant legislation we will ask the successful candidate to be screened by the Disclosure and Barring Service. However, a criminal record will not necessarily be a bar to your being able to take up the job.
Community Led Action and Savings Support – Registered Charity No. 1188480

Community Savers secures National Lottery grant

Community Savers have been awarded a two-year development grant of £209,500 from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK, to deepen and broaden the impact of our women-led approach to reducing urban poverty and inequality.
The National Lottery funding has a focus on supporting transformational and long-term change. The funding is seeking to support “visionary initiatives that go beyond individual organisations, and instead focus on ecologies, platforms…networks”, that are capable of “generating infrastructure through which many things are possible.”
For Community Savers and CLASS this call felt like a perfect fit. The funding, made possible thanks to National Lottery players, will enable our women leaders to strengthen the existing network while reaching out to other communities across Greater Manchester and Sheffield to share their approach and reach a wider diversity of communities. Savers will be enabled to further develop innovative and collaborative initiatives like those in Hulme and Miles Platting and to share learning with similar groups in other areas for possible adaptation. Community Savers and CLASS will have additional capacity to support groups in a wider set of neighbourhoods to form community networks and identify priorities for collective action together with local service providers and local government.
Sharon Davis, Mums Mart Treasurer and an original founder and mentor of the Community Savers network said:
“We are all absolutely delighted about this National Lottery funding. It feels like after all the hard work of the last two years this is real recognition for what we do. A lot of what we do goes unnoticed but by working together across different communities, and now different cities as well, it feels like we are building a stronger voice. I also just want to say well done to all our women savers and leaders across the network – we should all be really proud of ourselves.”
Sophie King, Director of CLASS, said:
“This feels like a transformative moment in the Community Savers’ development. It is wonderful to have this recognition from such an exciting new initiative from The National Lottery Community Fund. As the savings leadership have experimented with the approaches of the 85% women-led Shack/Slum Dwellers International since 2016, including through visits to Cape Town and Nairobi, it has been amazing to watch women translate these ideas for the UK context. The accumulation of confidence, skills, knowledge and significant outcomes for people living on low incomes in Greater Manchester, and now also in Sheffield, has been humbling to be a part of. It has been achieved through a fantastic combination of peer support and solidarity, learning-by-doing and learning exchange, and community-led co-production.
Community-led co-production is made possible when communities are supported to form confident, well-organised and completely independent community associations and to network together with other local groups through dialogue and peer exchange. This enables communities to prioritise issues they want to change and then form co-production partnerships with public agencies and authorities from a more prepared, confident and collective position, rather than participating in someone else’s initiative as a service user.
The savings approach starts by addressing individual and household needs such as financial resilience and well-being – but this is just the beginning. The savings groups are building blocks of social transformation which comes from communities testing out innovative ideas and scaling these up through their own networks and local/national government. Groups also save together into a club account thereby building trust in each other and the skills to manage collective finance and collective agendas.”
About the National Lottery Community Fund
We are the largest funder of community activity in the UK – we support people and communities to prosper and thrive.
We’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to work closely with Government to distribute vital grants and funding from key Government programmes and initiatives.
Our funding has a positive impact and makes a difference to people’s lives. We support projects focussed on things that matter, including economic prosperity, employment, young people, mental health, loneliness and helping the UK reach NET Zero by 2050.
Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, our funding is open to everyone. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, £43 billion has been raised for good causes. National Lottery funding has been used to support over 635,000 projects – 255 projects per postcode area.