Time for a quick recap on last terms projects from People Around Here....

People Around Here are very proud of all the very hard labour and creativity that went into creating these two dynamic flocks of concrete sheep installations. The jungle flock are safe and sound in the gardens of the HUB Ely and the more recognisable breed are happily grazing in the fields of St Fagans. A dozen young people with no previous experience created these sheep from scratch earning themselves some accreditation and opportunities to further employment - training and education prospects. 

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The final banner from the Brilliant end of term assembly at Adamsdown Primary school where we have been running the three year long Transition project with EURoma pupils and the yr 6 class.

A still from the exhibition featuring work by the Momentum 02 project with meets in Ely and the work of pupils from ST Teilos High School in our two year Lessons in Time Project (see Lessons In Time Blog).

Previous posts contain the videos from the Children in Need projects and Stay Safe...

Peaceful and United 2015

People Around Here's most recent music video made with the young people on the Media Matters project funded by Children In Need

STAY SAFE - info video

People Around Here have been working with South Wales Police and Youth offending Service along with Glyn Derw and Michaelston high schools to create this information video for the Stay Safe project.



Stay Safe  is a joint initiative between South Wales Police and the Youth Offending Service which was set up to improve engagement with young people across Cardiff.

Its primary aim is to keep young people visiting Cardiff’s city centre parks safe.

On Saturday afternoons, between 3.00pm and 9.00pm the Staysafe team is out and about in the parks in central Cardiff where they are able to provide help and advice to young people and when necessary take them to a place of safety and make contact with a parent or guardian to ensure their safe journey home.





Please check out the Stay Safe FB page StaySafe Cardiff

STAY SAFE MUSIC VIDEO

People Around Here have been working with South Wales Police and Youth offending Service along with Glyn Derw and Michaelston high schools to create this information video for the Stay Safe project.

Stay Safe
is a joint initiative between South Wales Police and the Youth Offending
Service which was set up to improve engagement with young people across
Cardiff.

Its primary aim is to keep young people visiting Cardiff’s city centre parks safe.

On Saturday afternoons, between 3.00pm and 9.00pm the Stay Safe team is out and

about in the parks in central Cardiff where they are able to provide help and
advice to young people and when necessary take them to a place of safety and
make contact with a parent or guardian to ensure their safe journey home.

Please check out the Stay Safe FB page StaySafe Cardiff.

YOUNG PEOPLE IMAGINE A POSITIVE FUTURE FOR THEIR CITY

YOUNG PEOPLE IMAGINE A POSITIVE FUTURE FOR THEIR CITY

From 23 April to 21 May Cardiff Story Museum houses "i ~ chair 2015" an exhibition of sculpture, painting and video which illustrates young peoples' aspirations to take control of their lives and become agents of change to create a better life for themselves, their families and their communities. Cardiff-based charity, People Around Here, has worked with young people, through six community-focussed projects, to compile this collective artwork which speaks of a positive future.

People Around Here has been working in Cardiff for the past 10 years and uses creative art to enable young people to explore their current situations and express their hopes and aspirations for the future.

Bill Taylor-Beales, Creative Director of People Around Here, says "Too often the general public views young people negatively. This exhibition shows everyone how young people can be given a voice and empowered to make changes in their lives and in those of people around them. We live in the youngest capital city in Europe. If anywhere should be listening to their youngest citizens then it is Cardiff.

The projects which comprise the exhibition have been funded/partnered by Heritage Lottery Fund, Children in Need, South Wales Police, Police and Crimes Commissioner, G4S, Action in Caerau and Ely, NIACE Cymru, Ely Caerau Federation, Cardiff Council Youth Offending Service, Arts Council of Wales, Cardiff Story Museum and St. Teilo's High School.

Stay Safe is a joint initiative between South Wales Police and the Youth Offending Service which was set up to improve engagement with young people across Cardiff. Its primary aim is to keep young people visiting Cardiff’s city centre parks safe. On Saturday afternoons, between 3.00pm and 9.00pm the Stay Safe team is out and about in the parks in central Cardiff where they are able to provide help and advice to young people and when necessary take them to a place of safety and make contact with a parent or guardian to ensure their safe journey home.

Art Review - Young Person on Bronze Art Award reviews local Exhibition.

ART REVIEW BY HARLEY BURFORD

For my art review I went to an exhibition of photography by the artist Dan Green.

The exhibition was all about footballers getting together from all around the world who are now living in Cardiff, to play Cardiff at Roath Park Rec.

Dan Green was the artist who took the photos and got the team together.

The table football was a fun addition to the exhibition and meant the audience could get involved. It was good as each player was shown with their country’s flag colours, which was a really good idea.

My favourite pieces were the screen prints because you need artistic skill to produce these.  The photos were all very similar and got a bit boring.  I like the screen prints because they used the flags for the background.  I like the effect of the screen-print because it looks old.  It inspired me and I would like to try this myself one day.  They have more of an art effect than the photos that were just realistic shots. 

This was my favourite quote from the exhibition as it is positive.  It sounds like they all get along and it made me have a positive reaction to the exhibitions I am not really a football fan myself, but I was interested in the quotes.

‘Everyone has a good personality and everyone has a smile on their face’

I liked the idea of the footballers being pinned on a map to show where they were from.  I will tell my friends to go along to Roath Rec and play football.  I liked the football signed by all of the players.  The exhibition kept your interest as there were lots of extra things like this added to look at.  The way the exhibition was displayed was great as it was varied. I would recommend this exhibition mainly to people who really like football, but other people might find the idea behind it interesting.  Also, it could get people who are not into football more interested in the sport. I asked my youth worker what she thought of the exhibition and she said

‘It’s very heart-warming that all the people from different countries share the same passion’

Overall I would say the photos were too repetitive at times which made it a not boring, but I think the idea behind it and the fact the people are from all over the world is exciting and it’s a really good project.

Art Review - Young People on their Bronze Arts Award review the Photo Marathon Exhibition Cardiff Story 2014

Nicole Perry.

I went to the Cardiff photo Marathon on the 24^th of June 2014.  The exhibition was a competition based in Cardiff for any one who enjoys taking photos.

There was a great range of photos shown.  I think the most inspiring thing about the photos was the attention to detail.  Some of the people had taken photos you would not expect to see in everyday life and some were set up, others were natural shots. 

The photos were split into 12 topics and the artists had to do one photo for each topic.  For example ‘the power of tens’ was one subject and they all came up with really different ideas.  I think this made the exhibition really interesting and enjoyable as there was so much variation and shows how differently everyone thinks creatively. I really liked some of the funny pictures.  I didn’t like all the pictures because of what was shown in them.  For example there was one of David Cameron smiling on a doorstep, but I don’t agree with his views, so that annoyed me that he was in the exhibition.  The exhibition could have been made more exciting if it was a bit more varied.  There were so many photos to look at it was hard to focus after a while.  They could have had made the photos bigger and had less of them. The other people I was with thought the exhibition was interesting but not busy enough.  I asked our youth worker what she thought of the exhibition and she said ‘there were so many photos to look at that at times it felt like a maze!  I loved seeing photos that had people I know and recognised from the city where I lived in them, and it has inspired me to go to more exhibitions in the future’. I felt very inspired after looking at it, especially as I have done some filming for a recent youth project I have done and I really enjoyed it, so would love to take some creative photos of my own in the future.  I would recommend people to go and see this exhibition.

Callum Cleaver

The Photo Marathon Exhibition was really inspiring because I loved seeing how different each photographers pictures were, although they were all given the same topics.   I didn’t realise how varied photo’s could be and how different they can look when they are all lined up next to each other as I have never really seen any art photography before. My favourite piece showed a jelly baby looking over a phone for the subject of ‘control’.  I this was quite a creative way of looking at the subject and was showing how controlled we are everyday by using our mobile phones.  It was also quite funny as they could take the photo quite close up and the jelly baby made it was really bright and colourful. If there were more people present at the exhibition it would have been more exciting as there would have been a better atmosphere and I could have heard more people’s opinions on the work.  At times we found it boring as there were too many to look at. I would recommend this exhibition to people who have an interest in photography.

Josh Preddy

For this activity I went to the 'Photo Marathon' Exhibition in Cardiff Story Museum on 24th June 2014.  The exhibition showed photos that local people had sent in of their everyday lives and there was a competition for the best photos.  

The exhibition inspired me as I found certain things stood out, because I recognised them from living in Cardiff myself.   Therefore, the photos were pleasing to look at as they were familiar because of there setting. I enjoyed seeing all the different styles of pictures in the exhibition, and because there were so many different types of photos, it was really interesting to compare them all.  My favourite piece in the exhibition was of 10 bottles on a wall with a man holding one of the bottles. I liked the way the photo was taken with the wall in the background and him holding one of the bottles himself closer to the camera.   I think if there had been more people at the exhibition there would have been a better atmosphere, but this was probably because the exhibition was open all day every day for a number of weeks, so it may have been busy at other times.  When I asked others I was with their opinions they thought the same that it was quiet but very interesting and different from anything else they had seen before.  The people who were at the exhibition seemed to have a positive opinion and enjoyed commenting on the photos.  I am hoping to go to more exhibitions in the future, as I had never been to one before this.

Josh Harty 

I went to the photo marathon exhibition in Cardiff Story Museum on the 24th of June.  The idea of the exhibition was that the photographers only had 12 hours to take the photos.  I thought this was inspiring as the took such great photos in such a short space of time and all the photos were so different.  The thing I enjoyed the most was that the pictures were taken locally, so I could relate to and also recognise some of the images.  My favourite piece in the exhibition was called 'Street level' and it won first prize.  This showed an image of a local beggar who I have seen regularly around town.  The only thing I think that could have made the exhibition better is the pictures could have been bigger, but this was probably because they had so many interesting photos in the exhibition they could only show a lot of small ones.  Maybe they could have another exhibition with larger photos taken, by the page descriptions.

i~chair

The i~chair exhibition was launched by the Deputy Lord Mayor Ali Ahmed yesterday at Cardiff Story. 

Over the past year, People Around Here have been working with three groups of disengaged young people to compile a collective work of art that speaks of a positive future. All the young people involved in this project are either at risk of, or have already, disengaged from education or employment. Young people from a Cardiff High School, Young offenders from Cardiff Youth Offending Service and HMP & YOI Parc and young people with NEET status in Ely and Caerau have all contributed work to the exhibition.

Please do pop along and take a look at the brilliant work achieved by these young people.

Dates: 26^th June until 19^th July 2014

Opening Times: Monday – Saturday 10am-4pm

Venue:

Temporary Exhibition 2

The Cardiff Story

The Old Library

The Hayes

Cardiff

CF10 1BH

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.

16-60: A Woman's Voice Exhibition Launch

Launch event THIS SATURDAY

It's almost here... the launch event of our exhibition at Cardiff Story Museum... 
'16-60: A Woman's Voice'.

The culmination of 1 year of interviews, film making, creativity and hard work from a talented group of girls in Butetown.

Film premiere, fashion show, music and art presentations and refreshments. 

Tell everyone, bring your friends and family! See you there... 6pm Saturday October 5th.

Funded by Heritage Lottery Fund Young Roots Programme.
In Partnership with Cardiff Story Museum and Cardiff Youth Service. 

Ely bridge murals

We've just completed a big CAN DO mural project... in a heatwave!

We have been working with community members, schools and youth groups in the Ely and Fairwater area, creating 3 murals to brighten up Ely bridge.

The murals celebrate vibrant community life and promote partnership working across the local communities. There is a strong theme of ‘connection’ in the designs, which feature jigsaw pieces, zips and buttons, as well as local landmarks such as the river and railway line. The collaborative project developed over 9 months in a partnership between Communities First (ACE), South Wales Police, four local schools, Cardiff Youth Service, Network Rail and a number of local community groups. We were delighted to have lots of volunteers from the surrounding area helping us paint the bridge... they did a great job!

Dave Horton, Deputy Cluster Manager for Communities First Cardiff West, said: "Recent years have seen an explosion of community led activity in Ely, Caerau, Fairwater, and surrounding areas.  Despite negative reputations, the area has huge community spirit and is an exciting and vibrant area of the city.  This project has been an excellent opportunity for local people to work together and express this positivity visually. We have really enjoyed being a part of this celebration of our community."  Dave Horton, ACE (Action in Caerau & Ely)

Cardiff Council Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Highways, Traffic and Transportation, Cllr Ralph Cook, said: “This has been a great project that has helped to inspire the community both young and the young at heart. The Mural has helped to brighten up the area and brought many community groups together over the last few weeks. I am delighted that Cardiff Council supported the scheme.”

The volunteer painters were happy to see their photo in the South Wales Echo on Wednesday, and we hope the colourful murals will be spotted in other local media over the coming weeks. In the meantime, there are plenty more pictures on our Facebook page. 

A big thank you all those who funded the project (Tidy Towns, Cardiff Youth Service, Network Rail, ACE and SPICE), South Wales Police, Cardiff Council, and the Councillors of Ely, Caerau, Fairwater and Canton for their support of the project.

On the radio

People Around Here is busier than a busy bee these days with CAN DO mural projects across Cardiff. Check back on the blog over the next month to see the results!

About 2 months ago, Becky was on Radio Cardiff chatting about our heritage project in Butetown - '16-60: A Woman's Voice'. Listen online by following this link - People Around Here is up first on this great show by Diverse Cymru. The project in Butetown is still going strong - every Wednesday our group of girls is working hard on costumes, music, films and artwork for our end of project presentations, which will take place in October and November.

2013: The journey so far...

Greenway Primary school mural

Bill has been working with a group of pupils, including some traveller children, to design a mural for the school entrance. The jigsaw-inspired mural reads ‘Greenway Together’. The pupils came up with some great ideas and really enjoyed painting the boards together.

YOS Media Matters

The young people in the ISS programme at Cardiff Youth Offending Service have been working hard on a series of short films expressing their own experiences of the youth justice system. They have been involved in every step of film production from planning, storyboarding and creating background music to acting, filming and editing. All of the young people have gained confidence and developed media and communication skills in the process.

16-60: A Woman’s Voice

We’ve got to know a fantastic group of girls in Butetown since October. They have been inspired by interviewing older ladies about how the area has changed through the decades, and each one has created their own short film in response. They’re now getting stuck into some creative projects in art, fashion and film. We’re delighted to be part of the ‘girls only’ provision at the new Butetown Youth Pavillion… we’re particularly thankful for the 4 new iMacs in the art room!

Thanks also to our volunteers Donna and Alida for their help in the project.

What's next? 

CAN DO

We’ve got mural projects coming up at Willows High school in Splott and also in 4 locations in Ely and Caerau this summer, involving a range of local community groups, schools and youth centres. Watch this space for news on those!

Transition Project with Families First

In partnership with EMTAS, we will be delivering a 3-year transition project Adamsdown Primary school. We’ll be engaging a group of pupils in creative activity days from their first term in year 5 until their last term as year 7 pupils at Willows High school. Our aim is to increase their attendance and achievement in the long term and equip them to thrive in the transition to high school.

Planning ahead…

People Around Here has been devising a strategic plan for the next 3 years. We’ve got lots of big ideas and we’re getting excited about delivering more projects with our many partners to benefit more disadvantaged people in Cardiff. More details will be posted on the blog as we keep moving forward.

Christmas Newsletter 2012

Merry Christmas from all of us at People Around Here!

As we look back over the last year, we are grateful for the many opportunities we’ve been given to fulfil our vision to educate, enable and inspire communities across Cardiff. We’re so thankful for your support… because of you, we are growing, making plans and looking ahead to 2013 with much anticipation.

To find out more about what we have been busy with throughout 2012, please take a look at our Christmas Newsletter.

Many thanks to all our friends, supporters, collaborators and partners for a fantastic year. 

16-60: A Woman's Voice

We are 2 months into our heritage film project - '16-60: A Woman's Voice'. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund's 'Young Roots' programme, we are working with a group of girls from Butetown and Grangetown over the next year to explore through the personal stories of local women the ways in which Butetown and Grangetown have changed over the last 60 years. 

The girls have been learning film production skills and practising interview techniques. Tonight we're off to Cardiff Story for a tour of the modern, interactive museum, where some of our project films may eventually end up on display.

The project has already made it into the press! Check out this story in the Western Mail.