MAD – Manchester Activity Day Teen led event in Longsight 

In March this year a group of amazing young people from St Peter’s High School in Longsight devised and hosted their own event at Longsight Library. The event was the culmination of 9 months of co-creative work with the young people and library staff.  

In 2025 Manchester Libraries joined the Libraries Rising Youth Engagement Network winning a small amount of funding to co-create a project with a group of young people, especially young people who may not have had the opportunity to engage with libraries.   We wanted to work with young carers and reached out to St Peters High School who were onboard straight away.  

The first sessions were at St Peters High School, followed by a visit to Central Library and John Rylands Library.  We looked at the reasons we have libraries, the different kinds of libraries in Manchester and what we thought was “hot or not” in Manchester Libraries.

HOT  

NOT 

The way the young people looked at the space with fresh eyes was extremely valuable with input such as “have signs that tell us what to do, not what NOT to do!”  We will take this information and use it when we are looking at our library spaces, signage and how we can connect with teenagers in the future.  

Once the young people had a good understanding of libraries we asked for ideas for a project.  We had four ideas and they voted for an event where they could show off their skills to the community. Over the next few meetings, we decided what that would look like and who else did they want to invite.  Their first request was for The Lord Mayor as we had also learnt about his role during our visit to Central Library.  We also decided that as well as the young people hosting their own stalls, artist Pete Obsolete would bring an artistic touch to the event and Computer Xplorers would provide a Lego Robotics session. For the young people’s stalls, they wanted to express their skills and interests and decided on:  

• Chess 

• Badge Making 

• Crochet 

• Selfie and feedback area. 

• Music from a group of Beat Boxers and a Saxophonist.  

We also invited Read Manchester to gift free books to the attendees. 

We had an amazing response from the community who loved the event. One said:

‘Amazing opportunities from amazing people, thank you for your great efforts’

Another commented:

‘It’s a good thing the younger people are recognised for their work. Had a blast today!’

The Beatboxers and Saxophonist were the highlight of the day. They toured the library space showing off their skills.

Families joined in with chess sessions, getting advice and having games against the young people, creative people tried crochet and badge making and the selfie area was a hit with everyone.

Read Manchester gifted over 200 books so everyone went away with a smile, and a book, after a brilliant day showcasing the talent, determination and great attitude of all the young people who were involved.  

The project also created a case study about the experiences of the group made in partnership with Libraries Rising, you can read all the reports here Youth Engagement Network case studies – LibrariesRising and you can see our report below.

One of the aims of the project was to give the young people a sense of ownership and pride in their libraries

The main take away from the project was how wonderful it was to work in partnership with young people, letting them take the lead on a project so they are invested in the outcome and the confidence and dilligence in how they took on the challenge. We will continue to work with young people to give them a voice in the library service and more chances to co-create projects for young people, by young people.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the support of St Peter’s High School and in particular school librarian Ms Conerney.

You can see the full report here and look out for more amazing co-created events and projects coming soon.