Art group receives share of grant

GMWDA Member, Councillor Chris Gordon, Councillor Neil Swannick, Chair of GMWDA and Emma Melling and Lucy Sutcliffe from Cartwheel Arts.

Cartwheel Arts, based in Heywood, is one of seven community groups to receive a share of £55,000 from the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority.

The money has been awarded to the group for its innovative waste and recycling project.

Cartwheel Arts promotes social inclusion, cohesion, diversity and regeneration through community participation in vibrant, innovative, high-quality arts projects.

They use a wide range of media to initiate and respond to, project opportunities in Rochdale and surrounding areas, as well as promoting the development of the arts and examples of good practice across the North West.

Cartwheel Arts’ aim is to reduce municipal waste by working with a deprived area in Deeplish to increase awareness of food waste prevention via junk culture, recipe book and food workshops.

They plan to work with a well established art group called ‘Art and Soul’ who are an already established user led art group of 12 adults with mental health issues to make junk sculpture to educate what can and can’t be recycled. This will be then be displayed at the Touchstone Art and Heritage Centre.

Workshops will run to demonstrate how food relevant to specific communities can be frozen, stored, turned into sources or re-used in other recipes. The project will also include a junk workshop making jewellery, bird feeders and other quirky items out of the plastics not collected at the kerbside. The project will also recruit recycling community champions to encourage and support residents to recycle.

Emma Melling, Project Coordinator from Cartwheel Arts said: We are thrilled with the funding from GMWDA, which will kick start our project in Rochdale. There are many exciting strands to our work, which not only help enrich the community in Deeplish, but will also make people aware of the need to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.”

Councillor Swannick, Chairman of GMWDA, said: “I am extremely pleased with the chosen projects, which all have a positive impact on the environment and local communities in Greater Manchester.

“The applications demonstrated that there is valuable work already being delivered by the community sector and we must keep supporting it, in order for it to develop its activity over the coming years.”