• How to apply
• Grant evaluation
• Maximise your project's publicity
• Current recipients
  • The Active Communities Network
  • Alcohol Focus Scotland
  • Surrey SATRO
  • Bradford Youth Development Partnership (BYDP)
  • Early Break
  • Tangere Arts
  • London Bus Theatre
  • 2XL Youth Club
  • Govan Youth Information Project (GYIP)
  • D2 Youth Zone
  • Asian Social & Humanitarian Association
  • Fairbridge in Scotland
  • Brandon Carrside Youth and Community Project
• Previous recipients

Project: Early Alcohol Awareness Project

Region: Rochdale (Greater Manchester)

Amount approved: £24,446

Alcohol safety messages are being taken directly to the streets of Greater Manchester with the dedicated staff of the Early Alcohol Awareness Project.

With funding from Drinkaware, the Project utilises creative methods to reach-out to young people, primarily aged between 12 to 19; educating and informing them about the dangers of alcohol.

The intention of the scheme is to raise alcohol awareness across all young people regardless of their current alcohol consumption. 

Shakila Akram, a Manager of the Early Break service notes the importance of engaging with young people on this, “Catching young people before they have become heavily involved with alcohol or a drinking culture is key for us. Although as an organisation we offer services including counselling and rehabilitation for young people with alcohol issues, it’s of course preferable if we can alter attitudes and perceptions before this kind of intervention is required”.

The Early Alcohol Awareness Project targets hotspots in the Pennines area at a time when young people are most likely to be out and together.  This normally means that the teams are out at night.

“Our workers understand it is key to reach-out to young people in their own environment”, notes Shakila. “Although our work involves visiting schools, we work extensively within the community, visiting both local estates as well as less urban hang-outs in the area”.

Indeed, the project uses not only a bus, which acts as a ‘one-stop-shop’ providing a place for young people to learn more about alcohol safety, engage in group work, discussions and talk openly about alcohol, but also push-bikes to travel between locations and the more rural areas of the Pennines.

Workers on the bikes also carry an array of literature on alcohol awareness to engage with young people.

The Early Alcohol Awareness Project has been running since the summer and feedback from young people in the district has already been extremely positive. 

Shakila concludes; “Having specialist people who are trained in alcohol safety and can get stuck in with raising alcohol awareness in the area is proving invaluable to addressing the issue of alcohol with young people”.

Visit the Early Break website

Page last updated by

Root User, 19 Apr 2010.

Page checked on

23 Jun 2009