Samantha Edwards outlines progress so far on the Perthyn project supporting Welsh-speaking communities in north and west Wales.
Established and launched by the minister of education and the Welsh language, Jeremy Miles in 2022 the Perthyn programme is a collaboration between Cwmpas and local enabling partnerships, DOLAN and PLANED.
Perthyn provides local early-stage support to our Welsh speaking communities in north and west Wales who are interested in: safeguarding local assets and services; creating new jobs through new social enterprises and co-operatives; creating affordable community-led homes for people to rent or buy; and who want to engage with and benefit from wider Welsh Government support for Welsh-speaking communities.
Perthyn covers six counties across Wales – Anglesey, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Gwynedd, and Pembrokeshire – with the PLANED partnership working across the south west and the DOLAN partnership working across the north west supporting communities.
The project supports the aims of the Welsh Language Communities Housing Plan, and Cymraeg 2050: a million Welsh-speakers.
Our strategic aims are:
- Helping to maintain Welsh communities by establishing social enterprises and new co-operative businesses
- Helping to sustain Welsh speaking communities by developing solutions to support local affordable housing
- Helping to maintain communities by means of engaging with Welsh Government financial support more widely and other financial support to ensure that Welsh speaking communities continue to thrive
- Creating Welsh-speaking spaces where the Welsh language is central to the administrative structure and an integral part of the initiative.
Perthyn launched a small grants scheme which was open from January to March 2023, offering eligible community groups between £2,500 and £12,500. The purpose of the grant scheme was to invite applications from Welsh-speaking community groups in north and west Wales with a high density of second homes who want to build community capacity and accelerate ideas that will lead to the creation or support of co-operatives, social enterprises and community-led housing.
Out of the £250,000 available, £241,000 was awarded which saw 22 community groups across the counties benefit and be able to accelerate their projects. These ranged from creating and developing community spaces and hubs through restoring old schools, chapels and heritage centres, a Welsh language festival, community land trusts, renewable energy, community shop and post office, restoration of an old mill for use of the community and educational visits for schools, community-led housing, community benefit societies.
Perthyn is working on launching the second round of the small grants scheme to enable more eligible community groups to accelerate and develop their projects to benefit their communities and encourage the use of the Welsh language.
Samantha Edwards is Perthyn project manager at Cwmpas