Invisible Cities is an award-winning social enterprise that trains people affected by homelessness to become walking tour guides of their own city.
These tours provide a unique insight into the city in focus, with themes chosen by the guides themselves, interweaving the history of the city with their own experiences and interests.
Invisible Cities began in 2016 and has trained people to become tour guides across Edinburgh, Glasgow, York and Manchester.
A vital area of The Wallich’s work lies in the development of long-term, sustainable solutions out of homelessness.
This begins with building confidence and skills through engaging clients in the design, delivery, evaluation, and improvement of the services they receive.
This initial participation leads onto more formal progression activities aimed at helping people achieve a sustainable level of independence through education, training, and employment.
Guides can either be paid or work on a voluntary basis, depending on which options best suits their current circumstances.
The income from tours can be re-invested into the organisation and used to support tour guides training in skills-based areas such as budgeting and money management.
Guides will receive high-quality training – usually through a dedicated block of workshop training, followed by anywhere from four months to a year developing their own tour and practicing it.
This element of the project will be delivered by creative and community partners including National Museum Cardiff and Glamorgan Archives, drawing on their skills and expertise in recording, interpreting and engaging a diversity of different audiences in history and heritage.
Tours bookings will be available via the Invisible Cities website soon, bulk bookings or general enquiries can be sent to InvisibleCardiff@thewallich.net
If you can help promote our tours, support pathways for our service users or are interested in working in partnership, please contact julia.thomas@thewallich.net
“We are over the moon to start working with The Wallich in Wales. They are all about creating opportunities for people so having Invisible Cities tours as part of what they offer fits really well.
“Cardiff is also a great location for our tours, with thousands of tourists, events and a rich history to share.”
