College celebrates Santes Dwynwen
Gower College Swansea has celebrated Santes Dwynwen day in style this year. The common room at Gorseinon was decorated with red heart shaped balloons, flyers with the story of Dwynwen were scattered everywhere and plenty of chocolates, sweets and heart shaped jellies were given to students to raise awareness of the day.
On the Llwyn y Bryn campus, Library Assistant Kath Oakwood created a lovely Santes Dwynwen display and Student Recreational Officer Marc Nurse distributed sweets and flyers across the Tycoch campus.
Childcare Lecturer Rhian Pardoe and Welsh Language Officer Neris Morris organised an annual Twmpath barn dance at the Tycoch Sports Centre for all childcare students to enjoy. Rhian Noble, who is Welsh Champion at the Broadway Hair, Beauty and Holistics Centre and The Vanilla Pod training restaurant, also helped to organise events. A Santes Dwynwen themed night was held at The Vanilla Pod and Welsh love songs were played in the salons, with clients receiving a chocolate heart with every treatment. Students also created acrostic poems on the name ‘Dwynwen’, with the winner receiving cupcakes for their class as a prize.
Level 3 Hair students marked the occasion by creating ‘up do’ styles for an evening out and used students from Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe, who are studying on the Level 1 course, as models. They in turn translated some keywords in the subject for displaying in the Level 3 class - an excellent example of good practice in bilingualism.
“The story of Santes Dwynwen is one of the Welsh legends and it is important that we celebrate one of the most important dates in the Welsh calendar,” says Anna Davies, the College’s Bilingual Champion. “We encourage students and staff to take part in celebrations of days like this, as they increase the Welsh ethos of the College. We are also very grateful to Eleri Griffiths, Youth Worker at Menter Iaith Abertawe and Angharad Jenkins, a fiddler in the folk group Calan, for conducting our Twmpath sessions, which are a lot of fun for everybody.”