Building community bonds:
Event highlights and our hosting debut!
By Ellena Jenks (volunteer at Cardiff Women’s Aid)
This year, Cardiff Women’s Aid (CWA) is committed to strengthening bonds with our local communities and increasing the visibility of our services. It is vital that we are a recognisable and approachable organisation, so that everyone who needs to access our services feels confident to do so. We think there’s no better way to get to know our community more, and for them to get to know us, than to get out and meet people face-to-face. So that’s what we’ve been doing! Our wonderful blogger Ellena has done a fine round up of our recent event highlights.
Not content with attending events, we are also hosting our very first community based event. Our ‘Community Fun Day’ is free for all to attend and will include workshops, games, crafts and a chance to win some amazing prizes! We can’t wait to share some joy and togetherness with the community we are so proud to be a part of. Read to the bottom for more information on the event and how you can get involved.
Now, over to you Ellena...
Tuesday 18th June: Taylor Swift at the Marriott
We are happy to be the charity of the year for the Marriott and were thrilled when we were invited to join their stand for the Taylor Swift concert to help with face painting, glittering and friendship bracelet making for the Swifties. We were amazed by the donations raised to continue our important work and really enjoyed the supportive atmosphere. Hopefully we are invited to more events in future! The concert brought so many women together across Cardiff, it seemed only right that the donations raised would also go towards supporting local women.
Saturday 22nd June: Pride Cymru 2024
We were thrilled to march in the Pride Cymru parade with our banners alongside Welsh Women’s Aid. The atmosphere in the city centre was amazing and lots of people were kind enough to share their stories with us. Pride is all about raising awareness of the barriers faced by members of the LGBTQ+ community as well as celebrating individuality. The first Pride event in Cardiff was held in Bute Park in 1999 and we are happy to support the tradition in the city. We shared information about our services and marched to champion respect and acceptance for everyone.
Saturday 22nd June: Refugee Week Celebration Event
We attended the Central Library Hub to celebrate different cultures and countries. The event was organised by the Welsh Refugee Council and aimed to share information for refugees in need of further support. It was also a day to share multicultural music and dance, a fashion show, art and workshops, with inspiring talks from various keynote speakers. Most of all, the event was an opportunity for us to learn more about the barriers facing women who might use or need to use our services. We attended alongside our partners BAWSO, and there were other local community organisations we were glad to meet and stand beside.
Sunday 23rd June: Mela Festival 2024
Cardiff Mela Festival is a fantastic free community event in the Roald Dahl Plass that is focused around social cohesion and celebrating many cultures. Again, We attended in partnership with Bawso. This was the first time Cardiff Women’s Aid had made it to share in the festivities, although the festival has actually been running since 2006. We had some productive conversations with the festival goers and learned that a few people had not heard of us, so we look forward to raising more awareness in future! This event reminded us that there are always different events to discover in Cardiff where there are opportunities to share our information.
Tuesday 25th June: CWA at the Senedd
Violence against women and girls is an incredibly important issue and we never lose sight of this. As well as attending community events to share in a celebration, we also strive to advocate for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. This is why we organised a trip to the Senedd in June and created a visual display to show how many women use our services. We were keen to underline the importance of our services, so we also reminded delegates how many women are killed as a result of domestic violence each week and asked members of the Senedd to pledge their support to the women and children of Cardiff. Cardiff Women’s Aid has been established for nearly 50 years and we will continue to fight for our voices to be heard. We hope that this will plant a seed for more funding and political support for our advocacy work in the heart of Welsh politics.
Saturday 6th July: WOMB Summer Festival
Grangetown Pavilion played host to an empowering festival to celebrate menstrual and maternal wellness. There were talks on a range of topics to help women get to know themselves and their bodies. This included workshops for crafting reusable period products and energy blessings, but also plenty of entertainment for the children who attended with their parents. We had a stall in the marketplace area where we invited attendees to build their own ‘self-care kits’ with pamper items and mental health resources. They were very popular, with 63 kits made in total, and one guest even decided to use the kit as a baby shower gift. We hope that the kits will help people to learn about grounding techniques and take a moment of calm to themselves. If you’d like an opportunity to make a self-care kit, we will be doing this again at our Community Fun Day in August!
Events still to come
Wednesday 14th July: Shirenewton Caravan Site Open Day
We are also excited to be attending an open day at Shirenewton caravan site organised by the Gypsy & Traveller Service. Again, this is another fantastic opportunity for us to meet new people and raise awareness of our services across different spaces and communities.
And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…
Friday 16th August: CWA Community Fun Day!
This Friday, the tables are turned and Cardiff Women’s Aid will be playing host, welcoming other services and the public to our first ever Community Fun Day. Months of planning have gone into this event and we really cannot wait to share it with you. Everyone is welcome to attend the Fun Day, which will be free to enter. We simply want to give a little something back to our shared communities, whether that's people who have supported us, people who we support or other organisations we have worked with (or hope to work with) along the way.
So what’s going on?
The event takes place at Railway Gardens; a beautiful outdoor space in the heart of Splott. There will be a Serenity Space, with a drop-in crafting workshop and ‘make your own self-care kit’ stall. There will be local traders selling their crafts and handmade goods. There will be plenty of children’s activities, including a workshop from No Fit State Circus, giant Jenga, face painting and fete-style games, as well as a baby area and information stalls from some other incredible charitable organisations. There will also be music from the fabulous Cardiff Solo Steel Pan and a luxury ice cream van!
To top it all off, we will be running a raffle where entrants can win some pretty spectacular prizes. We would love for this event to raise some much needed funds to support our vital work now and into the future, so for £1 per entry, you can be in with a chance to win an overnight stay at the Marriott Cardiff, a 60 minute reiki session, a Fire Tablet and much more.
Even people who cannot attend the Community Fun Day can enter the raffle, so if you’d like to support us, but are not sure how, buying a raffle ticket or two is a fantastic way! We will contact any winners who did not claim their prize on the day on Monday 19th August by phone or email. You can find the link to buy tickets below.
Purchase your raffle tickets here.
We hope to see you soon at a community event near you!
The Team at Cardiff Women’s Aid.
