This November, The National Lottery turns 30 and to mark this milestone, we are celebrating the positive impact that National Lottery funding has made to communities and the Welsh language. 

Over the last three years, The National Lottery Community Fund has distributed £11.7m to 459 community projects enabling people to speak Welsh. One organisation which has benefitted from funding includes Menter Gorllewin Sir Gâr, based in West Wales. 

Menter Gorllewin Sir Gâr is part of Mentrau Iaith Cymru, an organisation in Wales which encourages community, linguistic and economic development to support thriving bilingual communities. It works to develop and increase the use of the Welsh language across West Carmarthenshire, focusing on children and young people, communities and businesses. 

The organisation was awarded a five-year grant of £477,147 from The National Lottery Community Fund’s People and Places funding programme to establish their Profi scheme. The grant has enabled them to develop young people’s skills to increase their employability, highlight Welsh language skills as an asset and encourage the use of the language in the workplace. The scheme facilitates local opportunities to encourage young people to stay or return to their local area after college or university and showcases the opportunities available to develop a career locally. 

With the funding they have developed a bilingual digital platform where young people aged 14-18 can access information and resources, learn about employability skills and track their development. The platform features guidance on creating a CV, preparing for interviews, an interactive skills quiz and signposting to local opportunities in the third, public and private sector such as apprenticeships, work experience and volunteering. They have even produced a series of videos and podcasts featuring local employers to demonstrate the exciting opportunities available to young people in their own communities.  

Meinir Evans, Project Co-ordinator said: “Receiving funding through The National Lottery Community Fund’s People and Places programme has enabled us to create the Profi scheme to support 7,630 young people to develop workplace skills and to apply for opportunities confidently. 

Because everyone has different abilities, talents and skills, we have created Profi, an interactive platform which helps young people to apply for opportunities confidently, identify their strengths and learn how to improve skills for the world of work. We are very proud to have co-created an innovative resource with young people, offering digital and engaging advice”. 

A participant of Profi’s outreach sessions said: “Profi is an amazing organisation that supports young people to ensure that they’re on the right track. I have found that I have a lot of skills that I didn’t realise are valuable. It makes me feel good because I’m very negative towards myself and actually seeing things written down on paper makes me feel better and more positive. It’s made me better as a person as I’m more confident in different types of situations”. 

The scheme not only increases aspirations, confidence and skills among young people, but it also aims to boost economic growth in the area and contribute to the Welsh Government’s target of achieving 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. Profi is one of four initiatives of the ARFOR Llwyddo’n Lleol 2050 (Succeeding Locally) programme, which works in the Welsh language strongholds of Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Gwynedd and Anglesey. Encouraging young people to continue their use of the language after education is crucial for the Cymraeg 2050 strategy. 

Ruth Bates, Head of Communications at The National Lottery Community Fund Wales said: “As The National Lottery prepares to mark its 30^th birthday later this year, it’s important to recognise the difference that National Lottery players continue to make to communities across Wales through enabling projects like Profi to support young people and the Welsh language.” 

Menter Gorllewin Sir Gâr received funding from our People & Places programme. To find out more about this funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, please visit our website: https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk