Upriser updates
The Upriser Press Gang sets Year 10 students at Willows High School the challenge of creatively promoting the school.
This month, the students were tasked with creating a magazine in a day.
With the help of Matthäus and Elle from our social and PR team, they appointed an editor, reporters, and reviewers, and set up interviews with our Community Engagement Officer, Ashrah and two Year 7 students who took part in the ‘I Want To Be…’ photography project run by our Engagement team at the end of 2024.
The students did everything themselves, from design to words, learning to collaborate with one another, critique one another’s work, only taking guidance from our team when they needed it.
The first edition of the Willows Way was ready by the end of the day, with five different pieces written by the students. The students kept their focus all day and were proud of what they created – and so were we!
Our next day with the Press Gang will be at the end of May, and we’re looking forward to seeing what the second edition of the Willows Way will look like.
Panel appearances
‘Thriving Newport’
Tahnee, our Engagement Manager and a proud Newport native, joined Business Insider Wales’ Thriving Newport roundtable to join investors, business leaders, and politicians to tackle the crucial question: how do we ignite a positive buzz around Newport to fuel the momentum of Wales’ “fastest-growing city.”
This is a passion project for Tahnee, especially as we’re deeply involved in shaping Newport’s future, from city centre placemaking to crafting its new destination brand with the City Council and partners.
‘Design Commission for Wales and Welsh Government Placemaking Conference’
In the last three years, placemaking has become an integral part of our work at Cowshed.
Rhian attended the Design Commission for Wales and Welsh Government Placemaking Conference to share experiences and learn more about placemaking in Wales and internationally.
A highlight of the day was listening to David Engwicht from Creative Communities, Australia talk about how town centres can be rejuvenated in just 7 days.
People are at the core of our placemaking work. This conference was a reminder of this, and we’ve come away inspired with new interventions to explore in our work with communities in Wales.
Changing the game for disabled young people
We have just wrapped up our Media Cymru funded R&D project with Cerebra. It has been quite a journey over the last eight months where we have been challenged, inspired and pushed outside of our comfort zone.
We set out to find new way for disabled young people to access the technical and creative processes of production. However, through surveys and interviews what young people they really wanted was to access gaming, as the gaming world isn’t built for them.
Using this insight, we worked with the incredible team at Cerebra’s Innovation Lab to create something that will transform gaming accessibility, empowering players to compete, create, and thrive.
This is just the beginning for this project, and we can’t wait to share more soon.
In the news
Sound Run Club
This year, our campaign SOUND tackles public sexual harassment against women and girls.
To launch, we focused on something that many of us have experienced: feeling unsafe whilst out on a run or exercising.
We brought together 75 runners from 10 run clubs from across Cardiff to meet at Over Seas Apparel in the Morgan Quarter for the first Sound Run Club. Running for conversation, rather than pace, the Run Club gave people the opportunity to run (obviously), but, more importantly, created a space for open and honest conversation between runners of all genders to discuss how they feel whilst out on a run, and how we can contribute to creating a better experience for everyone.
The Run Club was featured live on ITV News, with Liam from Over Seas Apparel and Olivia from Sunday Run Club speaking about their experiences in front of a backdrop of 75 people warming up on the Hayes. It was also featured on S4C Newyddion, Newyddion S4C, BBC Wales, and BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, seeing 13 pieces of national and regional coverage across TV, radio, online, and print.
More importantly than that, each run club involved fed back to us not only how much they enjoyed the event, but how valuable and important they feel it is – so stay tuned for Sound Run Club 2.0.
Care day
Every third Friday in February marks Care Day. For Foster Wales, this is a huge opportunity to highlight the amazing contributions of foster carers – and the real need to find more of them.
On Care Day 2025, we launched our new campaign: Staying Local to highlight the importance of finding local families for local children for their social life, education, and mental health, and to fight for the abolition of for-profit fostering agencies.
In addition to videos from three local foster carers, Sophia, an illustrator, speaker and care experienced young person created an emotive piece of art about what Staying Local means to her and her siblings, who had to be separated. Filming the creation of her art piece as a timelapse, we collaborated with her on social media to amplify the message. In her words – this isn’t a statistic, it’s personal.
We secured national coverage and regional coverage. More importantly, we got the message about #StayingLocal out to over 10,000 people through organic video views.
This campaign will continue as we await the results of a landmark bill to pass through Royal Assent which would eliminate profit from foster care.
