A photo of a Zoom Call on screen. You can see 8 blocks with 9 people in all waving their hands.

Past Projects - 2021 Year

As we might remember, lockdown in Wales continued in early 2021, and while things were easing off many of our participants were unable to return to in person activity. We continued supporting our community with online activities as well returning to back live events.

 

A montage of images of older and younger people talking online. The bottom image is a group of older people in a residential setting.

Inter-Generational – lockdown 2021

Our in-house practitioners Karen & Carys held a sensory storytelling session with residents at Llys Y Bryn and pupils from Coed Cae Schoool, Llanelli all online as part of continuation of the inter-generational lockdown projects.

4 images in one of people connecting online through Zoom. The top left image is a group zoom call. The top right and bottom right are individual images on zoom. The bottom right is an promotional poster of the sessions using creative words.

Creative Companions

Led and facilitated by Cheryl Beer, we created an online zoom space to connect creatives, volunteers and older members of our community to share creative ideas. 

YPSU - Square Stories

Our YPSU participants became detectives during lockdown. Square Stories was our lockdown project connecting young people to the history on their own doorsteps. We worked on Zoom with Lead Artist, Cheryl Beer to create a Digital Heritage Pack for the primary schools of Llanelli. Town Hall Square is filled with stories of courage, strength and bravery, reminding us of how amazing our town is. 
As well as working with Cheryl Beer, we worked local leaders Delyth Jones, Paolo Piana, Stephanie Simms and our Peer Youth Artists Oska & Copper. 

Square Stories was supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Fusion, Llanelli Town Council and Carmarthenshire County Council.

A photo of Damien and Eleanor standing in PSU in Llanelli in front of a pop up banner.

Hold the Line

During the first lockdown in 2020, we created a platform for writers; Dominic Williams, Helen May Williams and Mel Perry to connect with older people living in Carmarthenshire. 

We worked in partnership with The Carmarthenshire United Support project, where three older people were referred to us. This was an uplifting project for both writers and participants and in May 2021 we launched PSU's first book; ' Hold the line.' You can read this online on the link below.

Carers Speak Up

In April 2021, we launched a new pilot project in Llanelli, Carers Speak Up, in partnership with Crossroads Trust Sir Gar for carers aged 18 and over.

It was a response to carers feeling they want a safe space to connect to other carers, feel less isolated and have a creative output. 

Two women smiling and laughing to one another. The woman in red is holding a cup of tea

Pembrokeshire Story, Care and Share

As part of Get Creative we worked in collaboration with Straeon Gwaun/ Fishguard Storytelling and Voluntary Arts Wales to run a series of events in Pembrokeshire.

Pembrokeshire Story, Share and Care was a participatory arts project delivering a range of creative activities including storytelling, poetry and spoken word. This collaboration helped us to extend our services to Pembrokeshire. The aim was to engage with isolated older people, carers, those living with dementia and older people experiencing poor mental health. 

Cuppa Time

As we started to return to in person activities, working with Fusion we ran Cuppa Time, a weekly meet up in very small groups to deal with post lockdown anxiety and reintroduce people into their community. 

‘This has given me a chance to try out being with other people in a small group, thank you

Some of our participants said:
An image of the PSU Siarad Pod on a green field at the Beyond the Border Festival

Voices of West at Beyond the Border

Building on our partnership with Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival, we transported our Spoken Word Saturday programme to the festival in Llandeilo. During the festival we held a ‘Voices of the West’ session where our participants and festival attendees could share their own voices and stories.  

Virtual Day Centre

In partnership with Carmarthenshire Council, we created a Virtual Day Centre online for older people referred to us through the local health board and social worker teams. It was an opportunity to have a stimulating conversation and creative activities with older members of our community who are part of the Connect Programme.

Three people are stood around a table making lanterns at PSU

Festival Lantern Parade

Leading up to the Llanelli Christmas Parade we invited our Tyisha ward community to come into our home at PSU to create lanterns for the parade. 
Using willow and craft materials such as tape glue and paper, we created lanterns together in a warm and fun environment. This was a time and space for children and families to come together to have fun through creativity. 

On 17th December the families then took their lanterns on the parade through Ann Street Park and joined the festive celebrations outside of the 4 T's on Station Road around The Christmas Tree.

 

Paint and Tell

Launched in 2021, but we ran this into Spring 2022, Eleanor Shaw and Billy Taylor Beales ran a painting and storytelling session at our home in PSU, Llanelli.

A collection of words around hope and happiness written by young people

Coedcae Wellbeing Project

In autumn 2021, we worked with year 8 pupils from Coed Cae School and  youth service referrals.

We created a safe space for young people to be heard, improve wellbeing and be creative with professional guest artists.