Age Cymru

Age Cymru is the national charity for older people in Wales and their mission is to make life better for older people. Gwanwyn is a month-long national festival held across Wales in May each year celebrating creativity in older age. After the pandemic period, Gwanwyn is back in 2022. Gwanwyn means spring in Welsh, and celebrates older age as a time of opportunity for renewal, growth and creativity. The aim is to offer opportunities for greater participation by older people in the arts, whether visual arts, drama, storytelling, music, literature, photography, dance or film. The festival offers opportunities for older people to become involved in arts and creative activities either as practitioners, organisers or audience members. Gwanwyn also helps older people to recognise the benefits that being creative can bring to their health and well-being. It also challenges preconceived and stereotypical ideas of ageing and older people and, at the same time, encourage artists throughout Wales to reflect the lives of older people and the communities in which they live.

Age Cymru is the national charity for older people in Wales and their mission is to make life better for older people. cARTrefu is Age Cymru’s flagship arts in care homes project that has been running since 2015. The aim of the project is to improve the provision of creative activity in care homes and develop artist’s skills in running these sessions and for care home staff to gain more confidence and acquire new skills, sharing and practicing arts in their daily work with residents. cARTrefu has now grown to become the largest project of its kind in Europe. cARTrefu is fostering a greater appreciation of the arts among care home staff as they work with the artists.