emerge is a Christian young people’s charity which has been working in the estates and inner-city areas of Bradford for over 25 years. Emerge started through work within local churches in the 1990’s, and we continue to work in partnership with many churches, community groups and statutory agencies.

Many young people in our communities struggle to overcome the significant challenges created by financial and social poverty leaving them vulnerable to educational exclusion, poor mental health and exploitation and a future limited by circumstances. Our vision is to inspire lasting positive change in the lives of young people, socially and spiritually, aiming to see transformation of individual lives and the communities we live and work within. Our Christian ethos is seen in our core value of compassion which runs through all our work, including specific our groups and congregation which help young people to explore and grow in faith and spirituality in appropriate ways in our multicultural, multi-faith city..

We believe that a relational and holistic approach makes the greatest difference to an individual so we aim to meet young people in multiple settings including open community youth work (sports, social action projects, leadership schemes), schools based work (mainly 1-2-1 interventions aimed at removing social/emotional barriers to learning) and targeted or referral based programmes addressing exploitation and crime with funding from a range of grant making trusts both large and small, the local authority and others.