- Area:
- Wales
- Release date:
- 1 3 2012
As we come together to mark St David’s Day, the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) is celebrating news that it has now awarded over £4 million to support Welsh language projects.
As one of the most important elements in Wales’ cultural make-up, the Welsh language needs active groups to help maintain and promote the use of the language. And since 1994, BIG has awarded over £4.2 million to actively promote its use in communities.
To help celebrate this news, National Lottery-funded projects will take snaps of their St David’s Day activities which will then be posted on BIG’s Facebook pages www.facebook.com/biglotteryfundwales
BIG’s commitment to funding a wealth of Welsh language projects has seen one of the country’s most well-respected language initiatives, Menter Iaith, grow from strength to strength. BIG has awarded hundreds of thousands of pounds of funding to supporting different local Menter Iaith projects set up across the counties of Wales, meaning that hundreds of young people have been able to start learning or using more Welsh thanks to National Lottery money.
The support for Menter Iaith is only a fraction of the funding which has benefited the Welsh language. Other groups reaping BIG benefits include Urdd Gobaith Cymru, Cylchoedd Meithrin and Merched y Wawr. In fact every pound of the £600 million awarded by the Big Lottery Fund in Wales to help communities most in need supports the Welsh language in one way or another as all projects receiving cash are encouraged to work bilingually.
One of the biggest grants of £288,705 was awarded to Mentrau Iaith Myrddin in 1999 to help revive the Welsh language in rural communities of north and west Carmarthenshire. More recent grants including £191,791 to Canolfan a Menter Gymraeg Merthyr Tudful and £249,051 to Deudraeth Cyf are reaping results and much smaller grants are having an impact too.
In May 2011, Cylch Meithrin Bro Sion Cwilt near Newquay, Ceredigion, received £5,000 under BIG’s Awards for All programme. The group used the funding to move into new premises to continue to provide a playgroup operating through the medium of Welsh and start additional services to support parent’s knowledge of the language.
On St David’s Day photos will be posted on Facebook of children from the group dressed in traditional Welsh costumes learning how to make Cawl.
Highlighting the importance of their BIG project, group leader Christine Evans said: “We had to have new flooring, fences, furniture and new computer equipment for the group with the funding. Without National Lottery funding, this group wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be able to run at all. This funding is providing young children in the area the opportunity to learn socialise and play together through the medium of Welsh, which can only be good for the future of the language.”
Another group taking photos on Thursday is Urdd Gobaith Cymru in Merthyr Tydfil who received £97,893 from BIG to provide activities and non formal educational through the medium of Welsh for young people aged 10 to 19. Members of the group are taking part in the St David’s Parade in Cardiff.
Sion Roberts is the Urdd Gobaith Cymru youth work officer for Merthyr Tydfil and his position was part-funded through the Big Lottery Fund grant.
He said: “In order to improve the aspirations and skills of young people through the medium of Welsh, it’s extremely important to develop their future careers and provide them with opportunities to develop work-related skills. It’s important to provide young people with social opportunities to speak Welsh so that they have the confidence to use the language in all aspects of life.
“Our work is key in ensuring the Welsh Language flourishes in areas and communities such as Merthyr Tydfil. Without National Lottery funding and this project by Urdd Gobaith Cymru, there would be considerably less opportunities for young people to take part in youth work through the medium of Welsh.This project has raised awareness of and the need for this kind of service in the county. On average, around 700 various young people have been a part of the project annually.”
Young people at the BIG-funded centre Urdd Gwersyll Glan Llyn in Bala, north Wales, will be marking the day doing adventure activities.
Huw Antur Edwards, director for the Urdd Centre in Glan-llyn, said: “The Urdd’s Outdoor Education Centre regularly develops the activities and facilities based at the Centre so that the experiences children and young people who visit the centre have are continuously enhanced.
“The opportunities and the open air residential experiences at Glan-llyn are offered through the medium of Welsh to thousands of children and young people throughout Wales annually and the Centre is very thankful to the Big Lottery Fund for enabling us to achieve this.”
John Rose, Wales director of the Big Lottery Fund, said: “We aim to support people and places in greatest need and the success of our Welsh language projects shows how alive the language is across Wales.
“Promoting the use of Welsh and encouraging non Welsh speakers to learn the language can help people young and old develop confidence, self-belief and real life skills, which will in turn benefit their communities across Wales.”
For more information about funding available in Wales visit www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/wales
Further Information
Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 02920 678 224
Out of Hours Contact: 07500 951 707
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available at: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Notes to Editors
- In Wales, the Big Lottery Fund is rolling out £100,000 a day in Lottery good cause money, which together with other Lottery distributors means that across Wales most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
- The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
- Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £27 billion has now been raised and more than 370,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
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