Exposing yourself to a multi-cultural gathering at the heart of Riverside can be really rewarding.
Located at the heart of Riverside, Wyndham Street Centre has been transformed to a community space holding multicultural gathering.
Rabab Ghazoul, an artist living in Riverside for 22 years, refurbished the space over this summer. Now, she runs the space as a co-working space for freelancers, a community library with donated books, and a cultural hub assembling people from diverse backgrounds.
“This is the neighborhood that is least serviced by cultural provision,” said Rabab. “At least, there should be spaces for people to be together.”
Rabab launched a multi-cultural breakfast club as the initial of serial cultural activities this month. Approximately 30 people came to the venue and tasted a mixed flavor of Jamaican, Palestinian and Indian dishes.
Jennifer Lunn, 41, a theatre artist who moved to Cardiff from London two years ago, said that she really needs a community space to meet people outside her work. “This feels a bit more local, a little bit more open, a little bit more democratic and a little bit less middle class,” said she.
It was even hard to find a café in Riverside, a region populated by 13,700 people with 30% of non-white citizens according to 2011 Census. Now, people in Riverside owns a place for conversation.
Having landed numbers of community projects around Cardiff, Rabab said that the multi-cultural Wales capital gives her a sense of conversation. “You can have the sense of conversation, and people can be the part of the conversation. You can feel the conversation can cross class, age, ethnics, and cultural backgrounds.”
