Jun 4, 2019

Disability Arts Cymru is very pleased to announce that their MaDCaff project, which has been running successfully in and around Ceredigion for 5 years, is about to go National with the help of funding from the WCVA’s Volunteering in Wales grant. 

MaDCaff is a pop-up café style open mic event showcasing the musical talents of people affected by “mental illness”. It was set up in response to the difficulty that many very talented musicians, dancers, poets, performers who have personal experience of “mental illness” face in trying to get an audience for their work. The music business, venues and organisations don’t always respond well when a performer pulls out at the last minute because their anxiety has become overwhelming. We decided on the open mic as a pressure free opportunity, nobody is named in advance publicity so there’s no pressure to attend or play, it’s totally up to how they feel on the day.

This project will see 7 new MaDCaff groups forming, all around Wales, with two new groups in the North West, North East and South and one extra group in West/ Central Wales. Each of the 7 new groups will put on 4 MaDCaff  events between now and 31/03/2020. Volunteers will have some amazing training opportunities available to them and each group will be supported by one of our Regional Officers with the aim of ultimately becoming self-sustaining as we have done in Ceredigion.

Find out more on the Disability Arts Cymru website.