Following our call for micro-commissions in Wales, three partnership projects will use up to £2,000 to bring people together remotely through creativity and reduce loneliness in the context of lockdown restrictions. 

[Cymraeg]

This initiative was supported by the Arts Council of Wales and delivered in partnership with Get Creative and Gwanwyn.

It is part of our new Get Creative & Make a Difference campaign aiming to highlight those creative activities that have social connectedness at their heart. While it isn’t possible to come together physically to enjoy creative activities at the moment, we feel it is vital to offer means of connecting, sharing and creating with other people.

Gofal Dydd Y Waen & Community Arts, Denbighshire 

The project is a partnership between Gofal Dydd Y Waen Day Care , an entirely voluntary run  twice weekly Day Care service and Home Respite, and the Community Arts department of Denbighshire Leisure. It will provide a range of arts and crafts activities, delivered through the medium of Welsh. Aiming to improve the wellbeing of people who are very isolated and who can go for days without seeing another person, the creative activities will be delivered on a one-to-one basis in their gardens. 

 The people who will benefit from this commission will be older people isolated through their illness, frailty and circumstances and younger people who are living with life-limiting conditions – all have shielded and have struggled greatly over last year with resulting issues affecting physical and mental health.

You can find out more about Gofal Dydd Y Waen Day Care via their Facebook page, and about Community Arts, Denbighshire via their website. 

 

Arts Connection & Powys Befriending Service

‘Ffrindiau Hapus’ will bring creativity and community to isolated older people during the pandemic. A partnership between Arts Connection and Powys Befriending Service, the project will provide a range of arts activities designed to be completed in the home without needing access to the internet. The project will also create a space for community volunteers and participants to become penpals. 

 Powys is a highly rural and large county and issues of loneliness and isolation were prevalent before the pandemic. With many older people falling into ‘shielding’ categories, this isolation has been intensified greatly during Covid 19.

You can find out more about Arts Connection via their website and about Powys Befriending Service via the PAVO website.

 

Straeon Gwaun & People Speak Up

‘Story Share and Care’ is a participatory arts project delivering a range of creative activities including storytelling, poetry and spoken word. People Speak Up wants to extend this work further through this partnership, building both on their own expertise in engaging isolated older people, carers, those living with dementia and older people experiencing poor mental health, and on Fishguard Storytelling/Straeon Gwaun’s success in engaging older people through a social storytelling programme of monthly events and workshops.

Reminiscence, autobiographical storytelling, traditional stories, myths and legends all connect people with each other, those around them, their past and the present.

You can find out more about Straeon Gwaun and about People Speak Up via the PSU website.

 

---