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Cardiff Council Update: 13 May 2022
Here is our latest update, covering: city glows purple to mark Foster Care Fortnight; the immersive art experience everyone is talking about; fun day in the Bay; and coronavirus in numbers.
City glows purple to mark Foster Care Fortnight
Two of Cardiff's most iconic buildings will be ablaze with colour this month to celebrate the city's role in Foster Care Fortnight.
The walls of the Castle and the dramatic façade of City Hall will both glow purple - the colour of the service in Cardiff - at night over the course of the fortnight, from Monday, May 9 to Sunday, May 22.
The campaign, established in 1997, is a chance to highlight the work done by foster carers and fostering professionals in helping find loving homes for young people when they need it most. This year, it takes the theme of ‘fostering communities'.
The Fostering Network, which organises the fortnight, will use the event to shine a light on the many ways people across the fostering community support each other.
In Cardiff, the council's team of social workers who specialise in foster care have organised two drop-in events: the first at the Cardiff Central Library Hub on Tuesday, May 17 between 10.30am and 2pm, and then at the Tesco Extra store at Excelsior Road on Wednesday, May 18, between 1pm and 4pm. This will promote their work and encourage local people to join the thousands of new foster families who are needed every year to care for children.
The events will give anyone interested in fostering a chance to talk to the team about how to make a real difference to a child's life. "Whether you're keen to become involved in fostering, or if you're already a foster carer and are interested in transferring to the council, or if you just need some information, we're ready to talk to you," said a council spokesperson.
"The greatest need is for foster carers who can support older children, sibling groups, children with disabilities and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
"And when people decide to join Foster Wales Cardiff, they can be confident that they will have access to first-class support networks, varied opportunities and training and a very generous rewards package. For example, our enhanced offer means that the minimum amount a carer could receive fostering one child is equivalent to a £25,000 salary."
While fostering can mean caring for a child long-term, many foster families help with short breaks and offer respite care. And foster carers in Cardiff are as diverse as the city itself - married, living with a partner, single, from the LGBT+ community, disabled and from many different religious and ethnic backgrounds.
Foster Wales Cardiff offers a range of generous rewards and benefits to ensure foster carers are supported, financially, professionally and emotionally. For more information on the service visit Fostering in Cardiff | Foster Wales Cardiff (gov.wales) or call 029 2087 3797.
Dreamachine - the immersive art experience everyone is talking about - opens in Cardiff
Dreamachine, a powerful new immersive experience exploring the limitless potential of the human mind, opens today at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff where it will run until June 18.
Created by Collective Act, it brings together Turner Prize-winning artists Assemble, Grammy and Mercury Prize-nominated composer Jon Hopkins and a team of leading technologists, scientists and philosophers. Dreamachine is commissioned and presented as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.
Dreamachine will take its audience on a kaleidoscopic, visual journey through flickering light and sound, all experienced through closed eyes. Audiences will take their seats in a space designed by Assemble which allows them to enjoy a shared multisensory experience that is both highly personal and collective.
Dreamachine is inspired by an extraordinary but little-known 1959 invention by artist and inventor Brion Gysin. His experimental homemade device used flickering light to create vivid illusions, kaleidoscopic patterns and explosions of colour in the mind of the ‘viewer'.
More than 60 years on, Collective Act has brought together a leading team to radically reimagine the Dreamachine as a powerful new kind of collective experience, bringing this to audiences across the UK for free.
Every experience of the Dreamachine will be completely individual. Research into these differing audience responses will shed unique light on how the human brain gives rise to our subjective ‘inner universe', exploring the ways we each encounter the world, how this shapes our lives and who we are. Even with the tools of modern neuroscience, the question of exactly why such vivid experiences still occur is still unanswered.
While the Dreamachine immersive experience is for over-18s, a schools programme has been developed alongside the live shows by A New Direction in partnership with the British Science Association, UNICEF UK and We The Curious
Dreamachine has been developed with extensive focus group research to ensure it is as inclusive and accessible as possible, including neurodivergent, blind and partially sighted, and D/deaf people as well as wheelchair users and those who use mobility aids. Relaxed experiences are available for anyone who would benefit from a more informal setting, and a British Sign Language-interpreted session is also offered.
Read more here:
https://www.cardiffnewsroom.co.uk/releases/c25/29023.html
Fun day in the Bay not strictly for the birds!
Cardiff Bay will be aflutter tomorrow as a joint celebration marks two landmarks - one of the air and one of the airwaves.
Between 10am and 4pm, the city marks Welcome Back Swifts, part of World Migratory Bird Day, to celebrate the return of the swift population to the area.
It's also Marconi Day - 125 years since the Italian inventor sent the first wireless message over open sea, between Lavernock Point, near Penarth, and Flat Holm island.
There will be a host of activities to enjoy on the day, from guided walks and bird quizzes, to arts, crafts and games. Barry Amateur Radio Society will also be on hand to help you send messages across the world.
You can also investigate some island artefacts and take a virtual visit to Flat Holm without leaving the Barrage.
So spread your wings and fly down to Cardiff Bay for a free day of fun! For more details, click on RSPB Cymru Visit Cardiff / Croeso Caerdydd Cardiff Council / Cyngor Caerdydd Glamorgan Bird Club.
Coronavirus in numbers
Cardiff & Vale University Health Board Vaccination Status Update
Vaccination totals for Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan:
https://cavuhb.nhs.wales/covid-19/cavuhb-covid-19-mass-vaccination-programme/
Cardiff Cases and Tests - 7 Days Data (02 May - 08 May 2022)
Based on latest figures from Public Health Wales:
Data correct as of:
12 May 2022
Cases: 83
Cases per 100,000 population: 22.6 (Wales: 22.6 cases per 100,000 population)
Testing episodes: 918
Testing per 100,000 population: 250.2
Positive proportion: 9.0% (Wales: 8.9% positive proportion)
