Heulwen O’Callaghan: Junior Leadership Project

Heulwen is a qualified youth worker with a county-wide remit at Carmarthenshire Youth Support Service. She is passionate about providing inclusive opportunities and ensuring equal opportunity of access for Welsh speaking young people in the area.

In her role as Participation Worker, Heulwen has developed, written and produced a Junior Leadership Project (Prosiect Arweinyddiaeth Iau) which enables young people to learn skills through volunteering, develop an understanding of youth work and gain a recognised qualification (Agored Cymru).  Heulwen focused on the development of opportunities through the medium of Welsh, working with partner organisations in the voluntary sector to enable Welsh-speaking young people to undertake opportunities previously unavailable to them in Welsh.

The Prosiect Arweinyddiaeth Iau has created opportunities for young people to be able to engage with their peers in a safe space, in the language of their choice with trusted adults. Partnerships developed within the local community and with voluntary sector actively promote the Welsh language through supported youth work interventions. In addition to the excellent practice demonstrated and the positive impact on young people locally, the judging panel recognised the huge potential that the project offers in terms of future opportunities for the expansion of Welsh-medium youth work provision.