Community Gateway celebrates ten years
10 December 2024
Community Gateway celebrated its tenth anniversary in October, marking the occasion with an event in Grange Pavilion which saw our team and the local community coming together to celebrate.
Since the initial launch in 2014 at the Transforming Communities event in the Senedd, Community Gateway has delivered almost 100 research, teaching and professional development projects responding to community-identified priority areas across Grangetown.
We have also collaborated with all 24 of Cardiff University’s academic schools and with professional teams from widening participation, careers and employability, and procurement and estates, developing live projects as well as careers and enterprise pathways between Cardiff University and Grangetown.
To date, our biggest project in partnership with Grangetown residents and community groups has been the redevelopment of a deteriorating bowls pavilion into a now thriving community space, Grange Pavilion. After years of consultation and planning, in 2018, Community Gateway led on a partnership application for funding and Grange Pavilion received a grant of more than £1 million from the Big Lottery Fund to develop it into a world-class facility for the people of Grangetown.
Since its launch in 2022, the Pavilion has served thousands of community members of all ages, faiths and interests by providing opportunities across education and training, creative practices, health and wellbeing, youth provision, and community action.
Other projects have included launching the Grange Pavilion Youth Forum, now registered as a Community Interest Company, supporting the community-focused café The Hideout (based in the Pavilion), our annual Love Grangetown event, Community Voices Cardiff, Grangetown Careers and Role Model Week, Growing Up in Grangetown and the Butetown Mile, among others.
Student involvement has also been an essential part of Community Gateway’s work over the last ten years. More than 700 students from the Schools of Business, Medicine, Social Science, and Architecture have worked on 35 ‘live’ teaching projects, as well as over 200 students and graduate volunteering on Grangetown projects.
Working with Community Gateway has not only enhanced my communication skills but also deepened my understanding of the importance of community support in education. Community Gateway is bridging the gap and opening doors for so many. This role has given me the chance to give back to my community and make a positive impact. It’s been a fantastic experience that I will always cherish.
Since launching ten years ago, Community Gateway has provided over £100,000 of seed funding to test out nearly 100 community-university projects at different scales, and the partnership has brought more than £2,000,000 investment to the area.
The project has always had ‘soft borders’ and has been open to collaborating with Grangetown’s neighbouring areas, and going forward the ambition is to expand Community Gateway to other areas of Cardiff so that more communities can collaborate on and lead university-community partnerships.
The recent anniversary event saw over 100 people from the local area and Cardiff University join the Community Gateway team for a celebration of our work over the last ten years, and to look forward to what the future holds for the project.
Professor Mhairi McVicar, Community Gateway Academic Lead, said: “The long-term ambition is to expand Community Gateway to other areas of Cardiff so that more communities can collaborate on and lead university-community collaborations.”