In October 2024, the Cardiff Youth Led Grant Panel awarded funding to Dwi’n Dysgu, a project led by Mar Mari Luz Gil-Cervantes. Dwi’n Dysgu aims to build connections between Welsh-speaking communities and migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers by promoting multiculturalism and supporting the integration of migrant children. This initial phase focuses on fostering mutual understanding, with insights gained informing the future development and expansion of the project.
Six months on, we caught up with Mari to hear how the project, and her volunteering journey have progressed. We asked her a few questions about the experience.
What do you do as a volunteer?
I planned and led two workshops about cultural identity and the Welsh language. One with a group of year 5 pupils at a Welsh medium school (Ysgol Treganna) and the other with a mixed group of parents and children from the NAWARIS Sudanese performing arts group. I provided support to the two actors to engage in and learn from the workshops as well as supporting some Employer supported volunteers to engage.
How did you first get involved? What were your reasons for doing so?
This project was my idea, and I applied for the funding to run it. I originally wanted to run a series of 10 workshops with a group of young people from migrant backgrounds on the topic of cultural identity and access to the Welsh language. The culmination of those workshops (Titled ‘Ein Byd Bach Ni’ or Our Little World) would be to work with the young people to create a performance expressing their experiences, featuring their native/home languages and cultures alongside elements of Welsh culture and language.
This was an ambitious idea with the aim of combining community work with theatre, which is my area of passion.
C3SC granted me funding to do some community engagement to see if there would be interest from groups in this kind of project. At the same time Theatr Iolo granted me some funding to work on creating my own play on those themes. The play, which is in development, is titled ‘Dwi’n Dysgu’ (or I’m Learning). Because of this, with the agreement of the C3SC team, I have used the funding from C3SC as match funding for the ‘Dwi’n Dysgu’ project.
This meant that I could see if the community had interest in further workshops whilst the early stages of creation of the ‘Dwi’n Dysgu’ play could include community consultation.
Before I started volunteering in this project, I was a newly graduated student with a BA in Acting and Community Theatre. I had done some professional acting and facilitation work, but, having moved back to Cardiff after completing my degree was trying to forge a career in Community arts, which is challenging and financially unreliable at times.
I started working on planning and creating this project as it is a topic very close to my own experience as a half Spanish, half Welsh person who grew up speaking Welsh, Spanish and English and trying to navigate how my two cultural identities could meet without one taking priority over the other. I wanted to engage young people that may be going through similar experiences and platform their voices. I had done lots of research into the career, education and socio-cultural advantages of speaking the Welsh language and connecting this with the challenges that people from migrant backgrounds face to feeling welcome to and having access to Welsh language activities and opportunities.
What difference has your volunteering made to yourself and others?
Volunteering to run the Dwi’n Dysgu project as a young person who is making the transition to being a young professional has allowed me to make valuable professional connections with industry professionals. It has led me to be employed by Theatr Na Nóg and Swansea University as a facilitator, running workshops about cultural identity at Nuestra Escuela Cardiff.
This experience has allowed me to grow my knowledge in an area of great interest to me and value to my career. Looking at the experience of having multiple cultural identities and how we can keep our native cultures alive while engaging in local Welsh culture has been really eye opening. I have seen the importance this has in people’s lives, how they do it and what challenges they face. This has been really validating for me as someone from a mixed background. Having done this project means I can better create work that reflects these experiences and helps with the challenges.
I feel the workshops really had a difference on participants.
When asked what had stuck with them from the workshop and/or what they would take away with them. Here are some of their answers:
- Meeting new people
- Teaching new people about our culture.
- Learning about other people’s culture
- Getting to learn and teach others about Welsh mythology and heritage.
- Adults and children working together. A chance to connect with my children about my culture.
- Blending cultures
- Having fun together
- Having a safe place to share ideas
- Seeing that everyone in the room was born in different places across the world but we are all connected. We are all in the same room now.
After the workshop participants came to ask me if this could be a weekly or monthly event and that they would love to be involved in future as volunteers.
Can you describe volunteering in one sentence?
“Willingly giving your time to something that you feel is important.”
We’d like to thank Mari for giving us the opportunity to interview her and look forward to hearing the next project update. The Cardiff Youth Led Grant is a fantastic opportunity for young people to get into volunteering in an area of their choice while project-managing and meeting other like-minded peers – all supported by a small grant to make it all happen if successful. Go here to find out more about the funding and stay tuned on the next funding round!
