Storytelling brings communities together across Pembrokeshire

A series of storytelling events are set to take place across Pembrokeshire across 2025 to help bring people and communities together.

Pembrokeshire Storytelling / Straeon Sir Benfro and People Speak Up, Supported by Enhancing Pembrokeshire – Pembrokeshire County Council, have launched a 12 months project, ‘Care, Share, Connect : Community Storytelling Pembrokeshire,’ which will use oral storytelling to connect residents of Pembrokeshire.

The year-long project will see a host of friendly, inclusive community storytelling events, active learning workshops as well as one-to-one storytelling to those isolated/unable to travel.

Fishguard Storytelling/Straeon Sir Benfro and People Speak Up have previously worked in partnership to deliver community projects in both north and south Pembrokeshire, such as Voluntary Arts Wales (now Creative Lives) project ‘Story Care and Share’, delivering ‘Stories to the Door’ and by phone to isolated older people, and people’s homes, including those in the early stages of dementia.

Benefits

Both organisations hope that Care, Share, Connect: Community Storytelling will provide opportunities for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to enjoy the positive mental health and well-being benefits that sharing oral stories brings.

The last census reported that west Wales had a higher proportion of older people than average across Wales, especially in Pembrokeshire.

It is expected that the percentage of the population aged 65 and over will rise to 33.4% in Pembrokeshire by 2043 according to a West Wales Regional Partnership Board report, and the second Wellbeing Assessment for Pembrokeshire produced by the PSB (2022) confirms that Covid-19 exacerbated issues such as mental health, loneliness and health inequalities.

The report also noted that ‘people who regularly attend arts and culture events report higher levels of well-being’.

Whilst Fishguard Storytelling welcome all ages and attracts some in their 40s/50s, the strongest demand is from older participants, 60-80ish, often living alone.

Eleanor Shaw, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of People Speak Up said: “We are excited to be working in partnership with Pembrokeshire Storytelling / Straeon Sir Benfro again and using their local knowledge and storytelling talent, with our model or working in Carmarthenshire.

“We learnt so much from our previous projects in the Pembrokeshire community and saw how the power of storytelling bringing people from across the county together, helping with health, wellbeing and isolation.”

Collaboration

Care, Share, Connect : Community Storytelling Pembrokeshire is led by professional local Pembrokeshire storyteller Deb Winter, building on her own successful development of storytelling activities and inviting other local artists and collaborators to take part.

The next storytelling event features Tenby based storytellers, Phil Okwedy and Bill Taylor-Beales at Peppers Café in Fishguard on Wednesday 27 February, 7pm.

‘Call of the Blues’ explores themes of enslaved people; working class poverty and protest, and the 19th & 20th century struggle of man against machine leading to humanity’s current 21st century concerns about AI.

The following storytelling event will be on Wednesday 26 March, 7pm at Peppers Cafe again, with Deb Winter, fiddle player Barney Griffiths and other artists.Before both shows, there is an opportunity for the audience to share a short story/music spot.

Deb shared: “We are so pleased to have received funding from Pembrokeshire County Council and support from People Speak Up to bring these events to our local community.

“Our ambition is to bring the benefits of oral storytelling to more people in Pembrokeshire, to develop local storytelling talent and provide an opportunity for local people to make meaningful connections with each other through an enjoyable and inspiring activity.”

For the latest events and activities, visit peoplespeakup.co.uk