News

2018/19

Community Benefit (£10,000 awarded)

Wales & West Housing will provide a community garden makeover to offer a safe, secure and therapeutic environment for adults and children fleeing domestic abuse.

The project will provide a safe but fun place for young children to play; the garden will also provide a therapeutic area where the adults who access the service may relax with one another. This will include seating and a variety of plants and flowers to create a sensory garden. There are also plans for staff to work with residents and children to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs, and potentially create a mural.

When a family flees domestic abuse it can be a very chaotic and daunting experience so if we were able to provide an area where people could feel safe and integrate with, encouraging them to become part of a small community, then this would be a huge benefit for all the adults and children accessing the service. The facility aims to be a home from home and feel less institutional so improving this area will be crucial to achieving this environment. The improvements to the area will provide a much-needed space to improve both physical and mental health amongst service users.

2019/20

Access Improvements (£10,000 awarded)

Create a new safe route around the park for play; improve surface and width of existing pathways and access into the park. The surplus soil will be used to also create a pump bike track for people to use.

The pathways and picnic seating area are made of gravel and mud, they are worn, uneven and in need of improvement to ensure full accessibility for wheelchair users and general safety. The pathways are too narrow for pushchairs/wheelchairs/parents walking with children.

Working with the Secondary School for their students to participate whilst working towards their Duke of Edinburgh Awards. We would like the Primary School to get involved in creating sensory areas around the footpath. The local nursery use the park daily and keen to be involved in the project, improving better access to the park will enable them to visit with younger children, currently limited to access due to the pushchairs. They will also support with developing the sensory areas.

2020/21

Cofio – Remember (£10,000 awarded)

We support residents living with dementia, Parkinson's and poor mental health. In addition to the care and support we already provide we would like to introduce a new project ‘To transform spaces in our extra care homes to create social areas that can relieve boredom and depression, allow interaction, increase nutrition, and improve mental wellbeing such as memory loss’. Success of the project will be evidenced through qualitative and quantitative information.

Installing a RemPod in our extra care homes would enable us to transform the space and create interactive social spaces. This grant would be used to purchase four RemPods. We work with contractors who gift their skills, materials and time to help us deliver community projects. We can also draw upon staff volunteer days to help.
RemPods offer a variety of reminiscent scenes, and by installing a RemPod in each of our schemes we hope to provide safe, therapeutic and calming environments to reduce anxiety and agitation of our residents. We understand that familiarity for dementia suffers is important and being able to introduce ways to stimulate smells, sound, taste can help transport people back in time and enable us to work with them more effectively. The RemPod can be used on a 1:1 to basis or for groups.

2021/22

Ardal Cymunedol Maenclochog Community space (£10,000 awarded)

There are 3 steps to the project. Although step 1 is not reliant on step 2 and 3 being delivered.

Step 1 costs £56,519 – to purchase new equipment for the play area (including zip wire, swings, boulders, net swing, springies, resurfacing of the area)
The WPA funding would contribute to Step 1 costs, of which £40,500 has already been secured. The WPA funding of £10k would mean there is only a shortfall of £6,019.98 which the Community Council and WWH will look to secure via alternative funding means or alternative goods at a reduced costs will be used.