Merry Christmas!

Dear friends,

Christmas is almost upon us. We’ve had a busy year and we’ve been privileged to be involved in lots of exciting projects.

Our BBC Children in Need funded project - ‘YOS Media Matters’ - is into its second year, and we’re seeing fantastic things with the young guys at the Youth Offending Service. In the New Year we’ll expand this project into the Young Offenders Insitution at Parc Prison, working with more young people on art, music and film projects. We’re hoping next summer to exhibit some of their work in the centre of Cardiff.

‘16-60: A Woman’s Voice’ was our first creative heritage project, and it was a lot of fun. You can read more about it elsewhere on the blog. We’re already dreaming up ideas for another youth heritage project in partnership with Cardiff Story Museum and the Heritage Lottery Fund Young Roots programme.

This year we painted miles of murals (well it felt like it anyway)… from a primary school in Rumney to a care home in Caerphilly and a high school in Splott… and more. Over the summer we worked with hundreds of community members to paint 3 murals next to busy roads in Ely. More community murals are planned for 2014.

In the autumn we began a partnership with EMTAS to deliver a transition project with one very diverse year group over 3 years. The team delivers creative workshops 4 times a term, developing trust, teamwork, integration and social and emotional skills. We are excited about the impact this project will enable us to have on Adamsdown Primary and Willows High school over the next 3 years.

This has been a year of big plans for People Around Here. We have been working on a strategic plan and business plan for the next 3 years – defining our vision, crafting clear aims and developing partnerships to take us forward.

We’ll share more of these plans in the spring, and we hope you’ll partner with us to achieve more positive outcomes for more disadvantaged communities in the year ahead.

‘16-60: A Woman’s Voice’ – a huge success!

‘16-60: A Woman’s Voice’ engaged 50 young women from minority ethnic backgrounds in a creative project to explore and share the heritage of Butetown.

The girls interviewed older women from Butetown and created a documentary film. They were so inspired by the women’s stories that they went on to create more films, a song, a huge work of art and a fashion show to present what they had discovered about their heritage to the wider community.

The project has come to a close with 2 fantastic events – the launch of a month-long exhibition at Cardiff Story Museum in October with 80 people, and a fashion show at the Global Eid Extravaganza in City Hall before an audience of 500!

The girls told us that the project helped them to make new friends, grow in confidence, find out about their heritage and try new things. They certainly impressed us all. Well done to everyone involved in this fantastic project.

* Watch a film about the exhibition launch event here *

– thanks to media student Catrin Elen Rees for sharing the film with us.