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.