The Cardiff City of Languages Fair organised by C3SC and Cardiff Central Library Hub took place on 26th March 2026 took place at Cardiff Central Library, and brought together a vibrant mix of community schools, and projects supporting minority communities in Cardiff to celebrate the city’s rich linguistic diversity.
The event provided a platform for community language schools to showcase their work, highlighting their vital role in supporting minority language education across Cardiff. The schools are run largely by dedicated volunteers and offer children and young people the opportunity to learn and maintain their heritage languages alongside their mainstream education. The schools are run largely by dedicated volunteers and offer children and young people the opportunity to learn and maintain their heritage languages alongside their mainstream education. The schools represented at the fair included those supporting education in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Kurdish, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Ukrainian language, and as the day went on, allowed for the groups to integrate and network alongside each other to share their resources.
The Fair also provided an opportunity to highlight the strength of partnership working across the sector. Supporting organisations were able to host information stalls, including City of Sanctuary, EYST (Ethnic Minorities & Youth Support Team), Let’s Interpret, and DPIA (Displaced People in Action) who provided information about their activities, as well as projects of other organisations supporting people seeking sanctuary. We were also joined by research projects aimed at minority communities from Cardiff University and Adferiad, while the Senedd shared their multilingual information campaign and St David’s Catholic College provided information about their language courses and Global Heritage Society lunchtime club. Representing the Welsh language was Menter Caerdydd who organise Welsh medium conversation groups and events across the city. Together, these organisations contribute expertise in areas such as inclusion, advocacy, translation, and research and we’d like to thank every single one of them for joining us on the day to represent the breadth of diversity in Cardiff.
As the city continues to grow and diversify, events like the Cardiff City of Languages Fair underline the importance of inclusive, community-led approaches ensuring that all languages and cultures are recognised, valued and supported. One participant told us, ‘More events like this should be arranged where we can all come together and support diverse communities‘.
C3SC will be hosting our next Cardiff Community Schools Networking Meeting at the location of one of our members – ROUCA Romanian School on Saturday 18th April, 2:30-4:30pm at Llanishen Baptist Church, Fidlas Road, Cardiff CF14 5LZ. This session will provide updates from C3SC and local community schools, highlight available support, and create space for collaboration, shared learning, and collective planning – book your place here to join us at the next event.
