The Centre develops and delivers a series of project organised activities especially in relation to the regeneration and community development needs of our region. This includes community learning, research and development work for Communities First areas, workshops with the region’s black and minority ethnic groups and activities promoting Family Learning.
Additionally the Centre plays a major role in helping facilitate and deliver curriculum provision for the hugely important and exciting Universities of the Heads of the Valleys Institute, a joint project of both Newport and Glamorgan Universities.
Alongside these initiatives, the Centre has also maintains its broader community engagement with projects such as BeWEHL. This operates community development activities designed to help citizens engage with their communities by tackling some of the social and economic problems many disadvantaged areas face.
Our First Campus initiative continues to grow its numbers and range of activities. Aimed at raising awareness of Higher Education and achievement levels of school pupils aged 7-16 in disadvantaged communities, this initiative involves hundreds of youngsters in activities such as study skills, sports programmes, science workshops, business games and film making.
The Centre also has a 14-19 Learning Pathways initiative which has now seen us provide new courses and activities to support the role of HE in this Assembly Government Strategy. Particular success has been the delivery of Higher Education Level 4 modules to 16-19 age group students.
Another major development is the Centre’s Workplace Learning activities. Here, some 300 learners from 90+ companies have been participating in bespoke courses either at the employer’s premises or at one of our community based learning venues.