The story of the Matthew Project began in 1984, with a Norwich-based Christian social worker called Peter Farley. Peter was concerned about the level of substance misuse he was seeing among young people in the city and felt that the existing provision was not doing enough to support them.

Peter’s idea was to set up the Tackle Shop, a Norwich-based drop-in for 12-25-year-olds to get confidential advice and support, particularly around substance misuse. This was accompanied by an additional out-of-hours phoneline called the Tackle Line. Both services were immediately popular with young people, and this led to the establishment of a new charity, set up by Peter, called the Matthew Project, which comes from the word Matthew in the Bible meaning ‘gift of God’.   

Since those early days, we’ve grown into a leading local charity, working with thousands of people across Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex every year.