Social Change Corner

CONNECTING MANCHESTER FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Our Founders

Bridge 5 Mill was founded by a group of activists who wanted to create a space in Manchester that could act as a base for different organisations and individuals working on environmental and social issues. The mill was founded as a place for them to come together, share resources and build a network. The hope was that the space itself would reflect the work that all these groups would be doing, and so in 1996, Bridge 5 Mill was established, originally by the name of MERCi – Manchester Environmental Resource Centre Initiative. You can read more about our history here.

We now provide office space to organisations carrying out work across a wide variety of issues, such as fighting the arms industry, campaigning for global food sovereignty, supporting various pockets of society through art and creativity, and much, much more. We have worked hard to ensure our building reflects the work taking place inside of it, so that we are not just ‘talking the talk’ but ‘walking the walk’. You can read more about the building’s sustainability here.

We have a strong ethical and sustainability policy which states our main values and principles, and outlines how we choose to build up and navigate within our wider network of organisations and individuals. You can read the policy here.

We try to host as many networking and social events as possible to enable our Changemakers to meet each other and support each other’s work. We hope that this goes some way into building a stronger and bigger network of organisations across Greater Manchester carrying out similar work, but we know that it’s not the only thing we can do. In order to go further in achieving these aims, we created the Red Brick Sessions which are a series of talks, workshops, and trainings that are specifically designed to allow our Changemakers to work together on various issues, whether that be coming up with ideas to get the best out of our mill, or working on solutions to have a greater impact in the city. You can find out about the next Red Brick Session by heading to our events section.

One way that we want to better support our Changemakers and other external organisations or activist groups is to offer our meeting spaces on a sliding scale…

We’re also aware that, as a small team who have a lot on, we don’t have all the knowledge and experience to make the most out of our huge building, so we hugely appreciate anyone getting in touch to suggest other ways we could use our building – you can contact us here.