Team history

Fairbridge De Cymru was originally set up in 1985 in the Cardiff Bay area. It then moved three times in the next ten years as it grew and grew. In 1999 it moved to its existing site at The Parade where it enjoys a four storey premises. Over the past eight years it has been developed further. In 2001 an IT suite was built and in 2003 a studio was added to the fourth floor to allow young people to make music and animation.

The centre has been visited by a number of dignitaries over the years including Lord Lieutenant Bagshot-Blythe and Lord Lieutenant Norman Lloyd Edwards. More recently Colin Jackson visited the centre as part of the BBC’s Sport Relief fundraising event, and the lord mayor of Gwent has popped in for a bite to eat - cooked by young people of course.

In the 1990s the centre found itself in the international spotlight when its programme to get young women at risk of prostitution off the streets made the headlines. One red top ran a story dubbing the scheme ‘Happy Hookers Holidays’. The story even made it as a Trivial Pursuits board game question.