Lauren Dix was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.

Leah Mawson was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.

Megan Edwards was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.

Megan Northam was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.

Alice Pace was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.

Andrew de St-Croix was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.

Charly Ann Brookman was an enthusiastic member of the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass. Charly Ann Brookman was one of the few of the participants willing to complete all the stages of the project. At the final ‘Communication’ stage of the project’s ‘Learn, Create, Communicate’ model, Charly Ann Brookman spoke to the BBC, “When I used to go on the bike with my friends, the walls were really plain and boring and it smelt terrible, but now that we’ve done this it’s made it much better,” she said.

Charly Ann Brookman at the Trefforest Underpass.

Erin Morgan was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.

The Emotivate @ Trefforest Underpass Project was project managed by Cllr Jonathan Bishop, the Town Councillor for Treforest when the project was delivered, and co-founder of Glamorgan Blended Learning Ltd, which co-ordinates the Emotivate Projects.

The aim of this project was to produce two unique murals on the two sides of an underpass in the heart of Trefforest that was severely vandalised and a local crime spot.  The mural were designed and created by local young people for their local communities with support advice and guidance from a professional artist.  The designs reflected their interpretations of the environment and society they live in and the changes they would like to make.

Before	After

The design and creation of the murals took place via workshops with a professional artist with young people from the Communities of Trefforest and Llantwit Fardre. During the workshops, young people were asked to think about things in society that they would like to change and then design art work to reflect this, which included using knowledge and skills they had gained through e-leaning. Young people were encouraged to produce a reflective piece of writing of what their designs mean to them. Workshops took place in state of the art Garth Olwg Lifelong Learning Centre in Llantwit Fardre.

Improvement to local environment

The murals were produced and then realised at St Dyfrig’s Underpass as the centre piece of an environmental improvement project. Outputs of the project through a collaboration included:

1. Removal of current dilapidated tiles on the underpass- a number of these have already been chipped away

2. Producing unique mural on the underpass

3. Painting the ceiling of the underpass

4. Painting the approaches to the underpass

5. Removing overgrowth from approaches to the underpass

6. Landscaping the surrounding area by planting shrubs and bulbs, while being mindful of low future maintenance and as such sustainability

This led to a significant improvement in the vitality, viability and visible development of the area, with a crucial element being to involve local young people who will become  stakeholders in the art work and will encourage them to have increased respect for their local environment. With the involvement of rehabilitated young offenders crime in the locality has fallen dramatically.

In the News

The Emotivate Project was reported on S4C courtesy of BBC Wales. You can see the news report in Welsh in the video below.

Caleb Edwards was a participant in the Emotivate Project @ Trefforest Underpass.