Mission & Values

Our mission is “to inspire young people to improve their lives”. It’s such a broad mission and it’s an enduring one too and at e:merge we know that we will always be striving to do the best we can to help young people improve their lives.

For us, our mission means meeting young people at their point of need and helping them develop in relation to self, others, their place & purpose and God.

At e:merge we know that it is by inspiring young people that we can all work together to achieve our mission and help our communities live better and more fulfilled lives.

The way in which we go about our work is immensely important to us – we want to do the right things in the right way – and because of this we have adopted Christian values to guide us in all we do – from the way that we recruit staff or work with people who access our services to how we will choose the right partners or suppliers. Our values are:

  • Love
  • Truth
  • Equality
  • Compassion
  • Justice



History

e:merge was formed in 1994 under the banner of St Mary’s church in the Laisterdyke area of Bradford, West Yorkshire, with the aim of establishing youth work services in the area and over the years, this has continued to be the main focus of our organisation.

The development of youth services was based on the needs of the Bowling ward, which has higher than the national average levels of its population within the under-16 and 16-19 age bracket and also higher levels of people who have not gained any academic qualifications. The ward ranks 132nd on the 2000 Index of Multiple Deprivation and has higher than average levels of crime too.

We could see that young people in the area were missing out on opportunities to live more fulfilling lives and this led to problems of social inclusion and community cohesion that we felt could be addressed by engaging with the younger people.

Over the years since e:merge’s formation, we have continued to see a higher level of need for our services than we have been able to provide and this business plan has been developed to map out the way in which we will work with the community and key partners to achieve our mission and objectives to address that need.

e:merge became independent of St Mary’s church in 2005 and has gained a great reputation locally.

e:merge’s unique aspect is our ability to walk the road with young people for the long haul by developing strong relationships built on mutual respect and trust. We are proud to be known for this unique quality and will strive to ensure it is maintained and improved.