University Health Board - A Space To Grow (2023-2024)

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Songwriting for Wellbeing offered a transformative experience focused on personal growth, healing, and self-expression through music. Led by Mike Fulthorpe, MA Music Therapist, the course unfolded throughout June 2023 in the tranquil gardens of The Reach Centre, Cardiff. It provided a serene, supportive, and creative environment for participants to collaboratively craft a song, titled "Breakthrough".

The Art of Eating Well was an 8-week course which integrated cooking, nutrition, and creativity, to explore the profound connection between food and our lives. 

In this program, participants attained Level One Nutrition Skills for Life through Agored Cymru while refining their culinary abilities in crafting delicious and budget-friendly dishes. Additionally, participants expressed their artistic flair by conceptualising and creating exquisite tableware inspired by nature, fostering a culture of experimentation and idea-sharing.

Our Belly Dancing for Menopause course was purposefully designed to support women in understanding and embracing the multifaceted impacts of menopause on their bodies and minds. Through dance movements and guided discussions focusing on diet and nutrition, participants not only aimed to regain lost confidence and fitness but also exchanged strategies for alleviating menopausal symptoms through dietary adjustments.

"I lost all sense of myself through the menopause, but belly dancing has brought me back home." Participant.

Cultivating Qi was a four-week introduction to Tai Chi Shibashi, a practice centered around breath and energy cultivation through gentle and graceful movements encompassing 18 distinct forms. This moving meditation serves as a supportive tool for both mental well-being and physical health.

Collaborating with the ADHC Tipi Time group, we progressively expanded our repertoire each week, tailoring the pace to ensure the group felt confident in practicing Shibashi independently at home, enhancing their personal wellness routines.

Following each session, we gathered in the café at Dinas Powys Library to enjoy tea and engage in discussions about our experiences during the practice and the anticipated health benefits. To aid in retention, we even incorporated games to help us memorise the order and names of the movements.

The Power of The Pen was a collaboration with spoken word poet Duke Al Durham, to inspire the dedicated volunteers of Grangetown Kitchen Garden through a unique method of reflecting on their accomplishments.

Through poetry writing, the group crafted a piece titled 'The Poet Tree' as a metaphor for the extensive work, care and kindness that the volunteers have been involved in over the last year. To compliment their work, a large canvas was created from repurposed dried foods and materials from the Grangetown site to illustrate the volunteers  'Waste Not Want Not' approach to community engagement.

"Being involved in volunteering and the creative workshops has opened up new opportunities and given me something to look forward to."

Grangetown Kitchen Garden Volunteer

Our January Urban Winter Walking initiative was designed to foster physical and mental well-being by encouraging walking and socialising during the winter season. To infuse our walks with creativity, we embraced a psychogeography approach, collectively reinterpreting three familiar routes in Penarth. This encouraged participants to approach each walk with renewed perspectives, uncovering traces of the past, present, and even glimpses into the future.

Digital Dinners offered an engaging online cooking course tailored to preparing popular dishes in a healthier fashion. Working with Connect Women First,  we gathered participants' preferences for favourite dishes and devised more nutritious renditions by incorporating healthier ingredients or drawing from recipes featured in the Nutrition Skills® for Life recipe book, a core resource in all our accredited Get Cooking Courses.

Each week, we met online to cook together, following our curated recipes. Participants captured photos of their culinary creations, presenting them alongside complementary side dishes and garnishes, allowing us to share and celebrate our collective accomplishments.

In collaboration with Ysgol y Deri, a Special Educational Needs (SEN) school in Penarth, we launched a pioneering Pop Up! Indoor Vertical Farm project. Working closely with the students, we established and operated the indoor Microgreens farm, yielding weekly harvests of crops. Throughout the sessions, pupils delved into the intricacies of cultivation and discovered the nutritional benefits of these miniature greens. This initiative not only provided students with valuable hands-on experience but also showcased the potential for on-site farming to enrich the school's cafe menu with delicious and nutritious microgreens salads.

Our Life Cycles series of workshops focused on the creation of four distinct collaborative mandalas, each symbolising a season – Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. In collaboration with Pedal Power, our workshops blended the essence of each season, intertwining elements of creativity and food, and delving into their interconnected relationship.

Every session commenced with a cooking demonstration featuring a seasonally inspired soup for all participants to savour, as we introduced the creative techniques to be employed in crafting the mandala representing that particular season. We also sought inspiration from the natural environment of the gardens and trails around Pontcanna Fields, which we explored either on foot or bicycle.

"Making soup and group mandala's has been fun, getting out and being with other people has boosted my confidence. It's important I do things like this to help my recovery."

Headway participant.