Vision 21 Cyfle Cymru

Vision Twenty One is an inspired idea. It’s a charity set up to assist people with learning disabilities that offers unique opportunities to their clients to make the most out of life
Vision Twenty One is a regional charity. All of the sixteen training projects that they coordinate are located in Cardiff, Newport and the Vale of Glamorgan. The fundamental objective behind their mission is to provide realistic training for students in real work experience settings. Many of the projects are open to the general public thereby providing the students with the opportunity to practice all the skills needed to realistically apply for paid work within the open job market. The projects use the social enterprise model, meaning that each project operates as a small business. The products made as part of the student training, be it food, wooden products, pottery, cards or plants, are all sold to generate income which in turn is fed back into the projects to make them as self sustaining as possible.
The Vision Twenty One Gift Shop on Albany Road is one of the sixteen projects currently being coordinated by the charity. It really is quite brilliant! Not only does the shop enable students to develop retail skills, it achieves this objective by providing them with the opportunity to sell products made in the other projects that they run. That’s a win, win situation if ever I saw one!
All the projects are very varied, and so you can expect to find a comprehensive assortment of product on sale in the shop, ranging from food, wooden artefacts, pottery, cards to plants grown by the more green-​fingered amongst them. Everything that is sold generates income which is reinvested back into the projects to make them as self sustaining as possible.
I say it again… Brilliant