About
Why IT’S POSSIBLE NOW exists
Ability is everywhere. Opportunity is not. IT’S POSSIBLE NOW connects support with real opportunities to earn, for people with different abilities.
About the project
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW is a UK social enterprise, run as a Community Interest Company, creating practical routes into employment, self-employment, enterprise and paid co-design for disabled people, people with long-term health conditions and others facing barriers to work.
It begins with each person’s strengths, experience and aims, not with a placement decided in advance. It removes practical barriers, then connects support to something real: an enterprise of their own, a paid job, or paid work testing and improving places and services. Employers, funders and venues take part by employing, funding or hosting that work.
We do not measure success by participation. We measure it by what becomes possible afterwards.
That means paid starts, earnings, retention, sustained trading, barriers removed and changes adopted. Every result it publishes comes with the method behind it.
Who is behind IT’S POSSIBLE NOW
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW is run by IT’S POSSIBLE NOW COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY, registered in the UK with company number 16430786. Ashraf Sharif is its Director and leads this work. View the company on Companies House
Principles
Support that leads to earning
Plenty of support helps people with different abilities prepare for work. IT’S POSSIBLE NOW focuses on the next step: a business of your own, a paid job, or paid work improving products and services.
Why paid participation
Income is what makes independence real. It pays for the adjustments, the transport, the equipment and the choices that everything else depends on. Every route here leads towards being paid.
Led by the person
The route is matched to the person. Someone who wants to trade gets help to trade, and someone who wants a job gets help into a paid role that suits them.
People work together
Difference is recognised without becoming a dividing line. People of different abilities, ages and backgrounds work, learn and trade together, and older people take part as contributors of skills and experience.
The three routes
Every route leads towards being paid. They differ in what being paid looks like.
Independent enterprise
BUILD
Practical routes into viable self-employment and enterprise: customers, sales and earnings that last.
Genuine paid employment
WORK
Genuine paid employment, with the right adjustments and real chances to stay and progress.
Paid co-design and testing
SHAPE
People with lived experience are paid to test and improve workplaces, recruitment, websites, technology, services, spaces and communications.
Where we are now
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW is at an early stage. This is what exists today, what we are developing, and how we will measure whether it works. Each item shows its status and when we last checked it.
What exists
What is set up and working today. Reviewed .
The Community Interest Company
Registered
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY is registered at Companies House. It runs this website and the routes and programme below.
Three earning routes for adults
Registration open
BUILD (your own enterprise), WORK (paid employment) and SHAPE (paid co-design and testing). Adults can register interest today; each opportunity depends on fit and on the partners and funding in place.
The NEET to OPPORTUNITY programme design
Designed
A programme for young people with six pathways: LEARN, BUILD, WORK, EARN, SHAPE and ENJOY SUCCESS. The design is published. The pilot is proposed, and funding, partners and delivery are agreed before it starts.
The Youth Voice hub
Published
A public part of this website where young people can share views, see what was decided and read about the proposed youth panel.
Open now: Have your say and youth panel registration.
Registration and records
In place
Registering interest gives you a reference number, and your details are stored securely. The IT’S POSSIBLE NOW team uses staff tools to review enquiries, publish decisions and run surveys.
Our Opportunity Network
Published
The initiatives, independent businesses and delivery organisations connected to IT’S POSSIBLE NOW, with what each one is and how it relates to us.
The Nuriqa design and operating model
Designed
How Nuriqa, a digital retail, reuse and fulfilment business, can offer accessible practical work such as photography, listings and packing.
The Difability recognition approach
Published
How an organisation is recognised for changes it has made, tested and kept in use.
What we are developing
Each item shows the stage it has reached. Reviewed .
Pilot partnerships
Approached
Three organisations have been approached about the proposed pilot. No partnership is agreed.
Referral routes
In development
How schools, colleges and services refer young people. Eligibility and referral rules are agreed when the pilot is approved.
Employer opportunities
In development
Paid roles with employers, with reasonable adjustments agreed before anyone starts.
The Mobile Retail Unit specification
In development
What a POSSIQUE mobile retail unit carries, how it is made accessible, and how a person would trade from it. Access to units and stock is arranged before anyone trades.
Possible delivery premises
In development
Accessible places to deliver the programme. No premises are agreed.
Delivery capacity
In development
The people and partners needed to run the pilot, arranged with its funding.
Detailed evaluation arrangements
In development
How results are collected, checked and reported, including who reviews the evidence.
How we will measure progress
No figures published
What we will count once people take part. We publish a figure only when there is evidence behind it, with the method and its limits.
Paid employment
Paid starts, hours and progression in work.
Earnings
What people earn from employment and from their own enterprise.
Retention
Whether people stay in work and keep trading over time.
Sustained trading
Customers, transactions, turnover and how long trading lasts.
Participation
Who takes part in the programme and in Youth Voice, and which pathways they choose.
Cost-effectiveness
What support cost, set against what changed.
Employer adoption
Whether employers keep the changes that were tested and worked.
Replication in other places
Whether the approach works outside Greater Manchester.
Recent progress
Related work
One connected ecosystem
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW, Difability and POSSIQUE work as one connected ecosystem under IT’S POSSIBLE NOW COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY.
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW
Brings the platforms together into routes to employment, self-employment and enterprise.
Register your interest in BUILD, WORK or SHAPE, or work with us as a partner.
This site
Difability
The recognition, inclusion and trust framework.
Join as a free member, read the Standard and the six recognition levels, or check an organisation’s record.
POSSIQUE
The enterprise pathway and practical opportunities to earn.
Read how the trading network works and check whether you qualify. Checking is free.
POSSIQUE is an initiative of IT’S POSSIBLE NOW CIC. Through a POSSIQUE mobile retail unit, a person runs a real enterprise trading Gazian Water, a product of Gazian Ltd. Nuriqa is a practical place for digital retail, reuse and fulfilment work. Where opportunities are developed
Difability is the recognition approach of IT’S POSSIBLE NOW: it turns tested learning into recognised practice. About Difability
Taking part
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW is a new social enterprise, and registration is open. Anyone who wants to take part can register their interest, and so can people registering on someone’s behalf. What people tell us shapes how each route is put into practice.
Funders, employers, councils, venues and referral partners can work with us as partners to put the three routes into practice.
Get involved
Register to take part, or get in touch as a partner. We will talk you through what is available and what would suit you.
Questions people ask
No. IT’S POSSIBLE NOW is run by IT’S POSSIBLE NOW COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY, a community interest company (CIC). GOV.UK lists a charity and a CIC as separate ways to structure a social enterprise. It describes a CIC as a special type of limited company set up to benefit the community, with a legal promise, called an asset lock, that its assets are used for its social objectives.
A community interest company (CIC) is a type of limited company that operates to benefit the community it serves. The CIC regulator’s guidance says every CIC has a compulsory asset lock that cannot be removed, so its assets, including any profits, are used for community benefit. A CIC must keep meeting the regulator’s community interest test and files an annual report showing that it does.
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW is run by IT’S POSSIBLE NOW COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY, registered in the UK with company number 16430786. Ashraf Sharif is its director. The company record is public on Companies House.
The About page has the details under Who is behind IT’S POSSIBLE NOW.
Income is what makes independence real. It pays for the adjustments, the transport, the equipment and the choices that everything else depends on. Plenty of support helps people prepare for work, so IT’S POSSIBLE NOW focuses on the next step: a business of your own, a paid job, or paid work improving products and services.
The About page sets out the reasoning.
In April to June 2025, 52.8% of disabled people aged 16 to 64 in the UK were in work, compared with 82.5% of non-disabled people. That is a gap of 29.7 percentage points. The figures come from the Department for Work and Pensions and describe the UK as a whole.
The article Ability is everywhere. Opportunity is not explains what the figures show and what they leave out.