Rhiwbina Living 62

The pandemic has perhaps
forced individuals and groups to
take another, alternative look at
education.
"Home-schooling can be isolating
for many, as we found out during
the lockdown," says Hannah. "Our
aim is to develop those personal
and social skills that aren't perhaps
nurtured fully in other ways.
"We're not the forest-dwelling
ferals that we're sometimes made
out to be. We're based in nature
but that's for several reasons -
there's strong evidence to show
that learning in nature improves
children's academic performance,
focus, behaviour, and their love
of learning. There's also the
added benefit of the children
understanding the ecosystem and
environment in which they exist."
But this is no airy-fairy approach to
learning:
"Our students, all aged between
11 and 15, develop all the skills they
need to face the real world and
always have the option to take their
GCSEs if they wish, although we
don't push any agenda on our Tribe
Members. Instead, we facilitate and
support them to develop their own
self-directed learning in a safe and
sustainable way. And in addition,
our learning does not contradict
or oppose the mainstream Welsh
Curriculum, but aligns itself and
compliments it too.”
The project has faced its fair
share of challenges, including the
recent withdrawal of access to their
location.
"It has been a rollercoaster - and
we tried so hard to stay where we
were - but as a very small charity
we just couldn’t keep going against
the big guys," says Charlotte.
In Welsh mythology, Awen is the
inspiration of the poets, or bards;
or, in its personification, Awen is the
inspirational muse of creative artists
in general.
In what's quickly becoming an
annual tradition, the project now
hosts a summer evening of food,
music, and storytelling, this year
taking place in the grounds of
Fonmon Castle.
"This year's Banquet as we're
calling it, takes place in September.
London-based chefs, Grace & Skye,
noted for their wild and fine-dining
cuisine, will be serving a menu that
they tell us is seasonal, sustainable,
and indulgent; all prepared from
locally sourced ingredients,
prepared over roaring wood fires in
the woods.
"The students will also perform a
sneak preview of their theatre show,
The Letter Killers Club, which is set
to debut in Cardiff in July."
The students are given autonomy
over their projects, even down to
running the project's social media
accounts. For Charlotte, the entire
educational project stemmed from
her own memories.
"My idea began when reflecting on
my own education," she says. Her
vision for the Awen Project came as
people
Students are given autonomy
and confidence
a mother balking at the unnatural
way schools organise children and
systematically deny them basic
freedoms.
Hannah, who has been on
the board of trustees from the
beginning before becoming
operational at Awen, has extensive
experience herself. Along with
her identical twin sister, Lucy,
Hannah co-founded The SAFE
Foundation, an international
sustainable development charity
in 2006. Through SAFE, Hannah
has been able to reach over 10,000
people across Africa and Asia and
help them access vital health,
education, and skills resources to
lift communities out of poverty.
"Since 2019, our Awen students
have put on public art exhibitions,
filmed a production of Macbeth,
transformed trash collected in the
woods into monster sculptures, and
built an online school.
"They write poetry and paint
watercolours in the forest; they
learn to identify plants and observe
the seasonal changes in an
ecosystem that they are a part of.
They learn history and languages,
economics and psychology.
None of this is untested or even
revolutionary. This is the way
learning is facilitated in schools
across the globe that are seen as
world leaders in education," says
Hannah.
Find out more about this project at
www.theawenproject.com
Adult guests arrive at the Banquet, organised by the students
The Wild Banquet takes place on
Friday 20th September at Fonmon
Castle. Tickets are available from
www.eventbrite.com
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