Coginio Ynghyd (Cooking Together)

Aim

Coginio Ynghyd will refresh our training kitchen and offer free food training to people of all ages at Wales' only city farm.

Who are we?

Swansea Community Farm Wales’ only city farm, we transform lives through connection with people, animals and nature.  We provide a free, green and educational space to one of the most deprived communities in Wales.

The Farm is volunteer-led, with community members from marginalised backgrounds looking after the animals and site for visitors and nature. Our volunteer team includes around 140 people annually, ranging from age 8 to 85. Over 90% of our core volunteers have mental health challenges, over 50% are neurodivergent, and 26% have a physical disability. Most of the adults are unemployed, and many of the young people are not attending school regularly or have significant struggles with school. Through Farm volunteering, they learn practical and social skills and grow in confidence while tackling social isolation and offering a welcoming, inclusive space for their peers.

Impact

Adult Volunteering - Adult volunteering at the Farm is open to everyone over 16. It brings people together to maintain the Farm as place for everyone. Volunteering outdoors gives daily opportunities to practice the five ways to wellbeing as people become more connected, more active, take notice, learn new skills and give to others and volunteering in the kitchen helps to develop food confidence, reduce effects of food poverty and develop hospitality employability skills. Many case studies affirm the life-changing impact of this work, with one volunteer saying, ‘it literally saved my life’. Through experience and feedback, we have seen how life-changing it is to be given an opportunity to be an active citizen, giving to your local community, rather than a  passive patient or a victim. Finding a community where people are kind, patient and value each other and where disability or mental health struggles are understood and catered for is simple but effective in improving lives. 

Child and Youth Volunteering - On Saturdays, young people run the Farm. This acts as a youth club for vulnerable children who are referred in, due to needing additional support needs. Many young people have Autistic Spectrum Condition disorders, ADHD, challenging behaviours and strained social and familial relationships. Typically, our child and youth volunteers come here to get help with feeling withdrawn, shy, isolated and different and become confident, outgoing and develop new passions and gain experience for future careers. The young people really love cooking and eating healthy meals together.

Why are we crowdfunding?

Much of our training kitchen is close to 14 years old with very little investment since then, this means that things keep breaking. This summer we saw fridges, freezers and cookers break down and our volunteers struggled with the heat and ventilation in the kitchen during the warmest days. Coginio Ynghyd (Cooking Together) is about bringing people of all ages together to cook and learn food preparation skills. We want our awesome volunteers to be physically comfortable (many are in at-risk groups) and that they have a chance to learn with equipment that works safely and reliably. We are crowdfunding to update the training kitchen and provide adequate cooling and ventilation. We will also provide  a minimum of 10 cookery workshops to at risk community members to bring people together, reducing social isolation, boost skills and learning, and feed people warm and healthy meals.

How we’ll spend the money raised

We will spend £6500 of the money raised on new energy efficient kitchen equipment as well as ventilation and cooling solutions to make the training kitchen a more future proof and accessible training space.  Originally built in 2012, the kitchen space has lacked investment and was closed from 2020- October 2024 because of covid. This has led to a need to update cookers, fridges and ventilation

We will also use £3500 and any additional stretch funding secured to run a minimum of 10 cookery training workshops for at risk people, bringing them together to cook and eat healthy meals whilst developing their skills, passions and employability. This will provide a warm, social and meaningful opportunities for people to gather for food-based training.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made