The beginnings of MAP owe much to the generosity of Alderman John Risebrow, who in the late 18th century left funds and land in trust with the declared intent that the proceeds should be used to benefit the physical and spiritual wellbeing of young people in the Ward of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich.

Some 200 years later, in the late 1980s, the land at the heart of the bequest was sold, realising a considerable sum. After considerable deliberation and research by key members of the parish of St Peter Mancroft and the Risebrow Trustees, it was decided to use a significant part of the proceeds to found a young people's information and advice centre. As a consequence of that foresight, the Mancroft Advice Project (MAP) was founded, with custom designed premises and a skeleton staff. Initially most of our work was funded by the Risebrow Trust, and they continue to provide us with valuable support, but over 12 years later 83 per cent of our funding must be found from other charitable and statutory sources. There are now 23 full and part-time people on the team, supported by 7 volunteers. We offered over 3,200 counselling hours last year, and still there is a waiting list. For information and advice too, the demand for our services continues to increase.

We are developing this section of our website to pay tribute to our sponsors, to give them information on how we are using their generous support and, through our "Wish List", to help others to see how they can help us to help the young people of our region. We have concentrated intially, as always, on the needs of the young people we serve, and have directed our efforts to their section of the website. Over the coming months, we will be concentrating on providing more information for this section.

In the meantime, thank you all for your support. It really does make a difference to the young people with whom we work. If you would like to talk to someone about sponsoring our work, please contact us.