Update to the Who We Are page 26th June 2023:
SUSTAINABLE WALES PATRONS,
‘GREEN AGENDA’ and ‘RADICAL AGENDAS’
Arrival in the Green Room of Hilary Llewellyn Williams on JUNE 30 to share her recent writings, gives Margaret and myself the opportunity to make a brief statement about the original patrons of this charity.
Hilary was invited to become a patron because of her writing. Other patrons included Jonathon Porritt, Edward Goldsmith, Dafydd Iwan, John Barnie, and Angharad Tomos.
These people were selected for their enthusiasm for ‘radical’ causes, including ‘environmentalism’, ‘language campaigning’ and ‘literature’.
We were very influenced by organisations such as Friends of the Earth (after all, we created FoE Cymru), CND, Cymdeithas yr Iaith and Wales Anti Apartheid. Also, we took part in support for the Miners’ Strike of 1984/5, and this was another factor for the creation of Sustainable Wales Cymru Gynaliadwy.
Our anthology ‘Gorwelion/Shared Horizons’ is thus linked to volumes such as CND Cymru’s ‘Glas Nos’ and the Anti Apartheid anthology of writings of 1986.
In 1994, FoE Cymru and Seren Books published ‘Green Agenda: essays on the Environment of Wales’, edited by myself, with contributions from writers and lecturers such as Alwyn Jones, himself a focus for the ‘Welsh Bacc’ essays now being judged, and initiated in 2022.
To celebrate the 30 years anniversary of ‘Green Agenda’, Seren will publish ‘Radical Agendas’ in late 2024, a look forward to what might transpire ‘radically’ in coming years, and demonstrate how ‘radical’ issues in Wales have broadened.
