Breaking Barriers are delighted to have been awarded Spirit funding from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). The investment provides three years of core organisational support, enabling the organisation to strengthen its infrastructure, sustain its theatre in education initiatives and deliver on its long-term strategic ambitions in their hometown of Rochdale and across Greater Manchester.
About the Spirit Fund
The Spirit strand of the GMCA Culture Fund is designed to support organisations that deliver high-quality, impactful cultural activity across multiple districts of Greater Manchester, investing in organisations that not only create and share culture but also contribute to shared priorities: growing the economy, helping people live well, building safe and strong communities, creating globally recognised cultural work and shaping vibrant places.
For Breaking Barriers, this recognition reflects six years of independently evaluated, community-rooted work delivered in schools, community spaces and public spaces across the region and beyond. The funding provides the core stability to focus on programme quality, partnership development, sustainable growth and talent development, strengthening the local cultural ecology that Breaking Barriers has been building since 2019.
Expanding reach across Greater Manchester
With the support of the Spirit Fund, Breaking Barriers will deliver an ambitious three-year community-driven programme of activity across towns, districts and neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester. Each project will champion local identities and shared values, celebrating the cultural traditions that coexist across GM.
Breaking Barriers works across generations and migration backgrounds, including people who do not typically engage in cultural activity, by removing barriers to participation and creating spaces where everyone feels welcome, safe and able to contribute. Their Explore, Create, Deliver methodology enables them to build safe, equitable and ambitious environments where people can examine issues that matter to them. These creative interventions allow participants to ask difficult questions, gain information and learn how to lead healthier, safer lives.
Working with both emerging creatives in GM and internationally recognised artists, the programme will consist of place-based projects delivered in and across Rochdale, Bury, Salford, Stockport, Manchester, Tameside, Bolton and will include:
- Immersive outdoor artworks using binaural sound, projection and light, developed with local residents and presented in public spaces, high streets, on urban buildings and in heritage sites
- Touring theatre and digital resources for schools, youth settings and community venues including the scaling of Crossing the Line, a 20-minute monologue exploring child criminal exploitation, which has already reached over 15,000 young people across 220+ schools in 7 Greater Manchester boroughs, Yorkshire and Derbyshire; and Blind Side, a programme exploring VAWG, consent and healthy relationships, co-created with over 1,000 young people in Tameside and delivered to more than 6,800 students
- Film and digital storytelling projects co-created with young people, emerging creatives and communities, distributed through schools, public screenings and via online platforms
- Workshops, skills programmes and placements for 18-25 year olds through the Young Company, offering paid shadowing and work experience in producing, sound design, filmmaking and direction
- Talent development programmes at Richard Street Studios, providing low-cost workspace, professional cross-artform mentoring, maker support and technical access
- Producer development programmes, supporting 36 creative producers a year to learn how to budget, secure resources, build sustainability and initiate their own projects through seed-funded opportunities
- Community-led creative commissions designed with VCFSE partners, faith groups, schools and neighbourhood organisations to respond to local needs and community priorities.
Developing the Creative Ecology
A central strand of Breaking Barriers’ three-year plan is scaling of the talent development offer. This approach strengthens GM’s talent pipeline by offering 328 paid freelance roles, 42 paid Young Company placements, and 45 in-kind artist residencies at Richard Street Studio to underrepresented artists and young creatives across the funding period.
The organisation will establish a Young Company, providing paid opportunities each year for emerging creatives aged 18 – 25 from across Greater Manchester, to become embedded within active productions. Participants will work alongside experienced creatives across theatre, film, audio and community arts, gaining practical skills and sector experience in an environment that is deliberately accessible to those from underrepresented backgrounds.
While this model is already in practice, the Spirit funding will allow for more structured delivery for 3 years, allowing more young people access to mentoring and opportunity to develop their skills in a hands-on environment.
Breaking Barriers was founded on the principle that access to the creative industries should not be determined by background, geography, or the visibility of pathways into the sector. The Young Company is a direct expression of that founding principle and a practical contribution to the long-term health of Greater Manchester’s creative ecology.
Looking Ahead
The GMCA Spirit funding marks a significant moment in Breaking Barriers’ development as an organisation. It provides the foundation to deliver at greater scale, with greater consistency, and with a stronger evidence base building on five years of independently evaluated impact and a growing network of statutory, educational, and community partners.
With this investment in place, Breaking Barriers is well positioned to deepen its contribution to Greater Manchester’s cultural infrastructure and to the young people, communities and creative practitioners at the centre of its work.
You can read more about the GMCA Culture Fun portfolio here.