Where We Work
Communities of support
Our hubs are the local focus points for building community, where people can come to have a meal together, take part in training sessions, meet a support worker, or access our housing and other opportunities.
Durham
Our Durham hub is located in Langley Moor and houses our woodwork and craft space. We also run a women’s craft group in Gilesgate on Tuesdays.
Handcrafted Durham, Unit 21 Skillion Business Centre, Littleburn Industrial Estate, Langley Moor, Durham, DH7 8HG
Chester-le-Street
In prime position on Front Street, our Chester-le-Street hub is home to a training kitchen where we run cookery sessions every weekday, open to every skill level. We also run a women’s group on Wednesdays. The Chester-le-Street hub also houses our enterprise projects, which include screen printing and plastics work.
Handcrafted Chester-le-Street, 70 Front Street,
Chester-le-Street, DH3 3BB
Engage
Our Engage hub works with young care leavers and asylum seekers – in particular, unaccompanied asylum seeking children – to provide housing, support and activities. The Engage hub’s work is based in Chester-le-Street but covers the whole region.
Handcrafted Chester-le-Street, 70 Front Street,
Chester-le-Street, DH3 3BB
Gateshead
Our Gateshead hub is based in a converted pub, offering a training kitchen, community cafe, a wood workshop, and on-site supported housing. We run a women’s group on Thursdays as well as various other activities on weekday afternoons.
Handcrafted Gateshead, The Shakespeare, 88/96 Fife Street, Deckham, Gateshead, NE8 3RR
The Shakey
The Shakey is our community cafe based in our Gateshead Hub, serving a range of breakfasts, hot & cold drinks, homemade baked goods and snacks. It’s run by some of our fantastic trainee volunteers, who whip up everything from chai lattes to bacon rolls.
Open weekdays 9am-12pm. Food is served until 11am, followed by a free community meal from 12-1pm. All welcome!
Closed on bank holidays, weekends, and over Christmas week.
The community space and kitchen is also available for event hire. Please contact Tim, our cafe manager, at tim.crichton@handcrafted.org.uk.
The Shakey Cafe, 88 Fife Street, Deckham, Gateshead, NE8 3RR
Sunderland
Our Sunderland Hub is currently based out of the @NextDoor Project in Pennywell, Sunderland where we provide woodwork sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. We also offer supported accommodation across Sunderland.
Hope4All@NextDoor, Petersfield Road, Sunderland, SR4 9BB
Testimonials
There are countless challenges and barriers between our Fairchance service users and a healthy, productive and satisfying life.
We often use the term ‘chaotic lifestyle’ to describe the multitude of issues they face, and we contrast this lifestyle with an ideal that is secure, positive, stable and fulfilling. Often people looking in on the lifestyles of our service users find them intimidating, disorientating and full of risk – it should be no surprise that the same is true the other way around. For our service users who are looking into employment, education and stable accommodation, what they often see is a very unfamiliar culture and environment that they are unable to navigate.
Handcrafted helps to bridge this gap. It’s a middle ground between work and leisure where our service users are building confidence, self-esteem, working relationships, responsibilities, a sense of achievement. As a natural consequence of this and armed with the skills necessary to make this transition our service users are developing goals and ambitions and making plans for the futures that they are beginning to see as a reality for themselves.