Header photo: a signpost from Tafwyl (David Clubb)
Afallen and the Welsh language
Afallen was created for a number of reasons. We want to keep money and skills in Wales. We want to help organisations understand, and better implement, Future Generations ways of working in order to achieve the Future Generations Goals. And we want the Welsh language to be a vibrant, inclusive and thriving living language, now and well into the future.
Take a look at Our Values. You can see how important Cymraeg is to us. We offer delivery of all our services through the medium of Welsh. Our website and social media outputs are bilingual. We understand that Cymraeg is for all people who live in Wales, not just for those who can speak it.
That’s why we want to support initiatives aimed at promoting the Welsh language, and at elevating its profile in public life.
The ‘Cynnig Cymraeg’
The Cynnig Cymraeg is an initiative of the Welsh Language Commissioner. It recognises organisations that have developed a Welsh Language Plan that is sufficiently credible and actionable to meet the Commissioner’s requirements.
Our Welsh Language plan has received this recognition. Given our strong profile through the medium of Welsh, and our track record of delivering projects ‘yng Nghymraeg’, we were confident of being able to meet the requirements. However, it’s one thing to be confident of receiving the recognition, it’s another thing entirely to actually get the award!
What’s next?
We are keen to highlight our offer to more clients who are keen to work with delivery partners through the medium of Welsh. We also understand that the Welsh Language Commissioner is planning a public database of organisations that have passed the standard necessary to display the Cynnig Cymraeg.
We would like to see the Welsh Language Commissioner’s office go one step further, and deploy the database onto an online map, to facilitate the accessing of data on local service providers who are meeting the standard. This is something our Partner, David Clubb, has raised before. We would also recommend that, in line with our points above, the map is an open source resource.
Given our brilliant experiences with open source mapping, including in this Swansea local food networks map, we would be only to happy to offer our advice to the Welsh Language Commissioner’s office. Trwy’r Gymraeg, wrth gwrs!