Sian Llyod

...de Wales Online:

Fascinated since childhood with its remoteness and Welsh heritage, Sian Lloyd had always dreamed of visiting Patagonia. Here, the presenter realises a lifelong ambition and finds waiting lists for Welsh schools and a people looking to the future of the language:

I have always had a sentimental attachment to Patagonia.

True, as a child attending Neath Welsh School and Ysgol Gyfun Ystalyfera, I had an awareness of the existence of a Welsh-speaking community in far-off South America, but it was nothing more than that....

Michael D Jones a’i Wladfa Gymreig

...de la Western Mail:

He inspired a generation of Welsh nationalists and without him the Mimosa would never have sailed to Patagonia.

But Michael D Jones is still regarded by many as a footnote in Wales’ national narrative.

A new book aims to put the 19th-century minister and colonist back in the spotlight, bringing together for the first time a collection of essays about the man who sacrificed his future and, ultimately, his family in pursuit of a Welsh utopia.

Dr Wyn James is a co-director at Cardiff University’s Centre for Welsh American Studies. He compiled the book with his fellow director, Dr Bill Jones.

Together, the essays mark years of research into the much-debated and argumentative minister, who had a key influence on the forerunners of modern Welsh nationalism, Emrys ap Iwan and OM Edwards...

Patagonio

…de News Wales:

The Welsh Assembly Government has further signalled its commitment to the Welsh language by announcing that the Welsh language project in Patagonia is to continue for a further three years.

Announcing that the project will continue until 2012 whilst meeting a group of Welsh Language students from Patagonia over breakfast, the Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones said:

"I’m pleased to announce that we have been able not only to continue funding this unique and worthwhile project to maintain the Welsh language in Argentina, but we have also been able to provide a small increase in funding."

The Welsh language project in Patagonia is an initiative funded by the Welsh Assembly Government to boost and sustain the Welsh language in the Chubut Province of Patagonia in Argentina...

Letero al Elfyn Llwyd, MP

Letero de Dafydd Iwan

…de la Caernarfon Denbigh Herald:

Three things have happened recently which have distressed many people in Wales, not to mention the distress caused to the individuals involved.

The first was the refusal of the immigration authorities to allow Evelyn Calcabrini and Shirley Edwards, both from Patagonia, to come to Wales to study Welsh and English, and Shirley also to visit her sister at Tremadog.…

The case of Arfon Gwilym, refused a visa to the United States because of his part in the non-violent campaign for a Welsh TV channel almost 40 years ago, is another example of bureaucracy gone mad. …

The third was the inexcusable bad manners shown towards Cefin Roberts and the singers of Ysgol Glanaethwy by a small part of the audience at Llandudno’s Venue Cymru.…

Surely, these three examples prove that we have some way to go still until Wales and the Welsh language are given the respect and status they deserve.

If anyone would like to show their support for Shirley and Evelyn, there will be a concert at Rehoboth chapel, Nant Peris on Saturday, July 11, the proceeds of which will be used to secure their return to Wales to finish their studies.

Peticio por Evelyn Calcabrini

…de la Agence Bretagne Press:

Following the refusal to allow entry to a student of the Welsh language from Argentina into the UK in May 2009, a petition has been set up on the No. 10 Prime Minister's website calling for the Prime Minister of the UK to help preserve links with Patagonia.

The petition states:

« We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make it absolutely clear to all the staff of the UK Border Agency that the United Kingdom consists of four nations and that the staff of the Agency should not damage Welsh links with Patagonia by refusing entry to people from Patagonia wishing to visit the Land of their Fathers. »

On 25th May 2009, Evelyn Calcabrini who lives in Chubut Valley, Patagonia, a Welsh speaking province of Argentina, was refused entry to the UK by the English Border Agency. Ms Calcabrini had made her way to the UK travelling for 35 hours from Patagonia to Buenos Aires to London, before being interviewed for several hours, only to be returned once again to Buenas Aires.

Evelyn Calcabrini

….de le BBC:

A woman has been sent back from the UK to Patagonia after immigration officials refused to believe she was travelling to Wales to learn Welsh.

Evelyn Calcabrini, 20, was heading to Glyndyfrdwy, Denbighshire, to stay with a local couple for six months.

MPs are going to raise the matter with Welsh Secretary Peter Hain. The UK Border Agency said it ran a "firm and fair" system.

There has been a Welsh settlement in the South American region since 1865...

Koncernoj por Kimra Instruado en Patagonio

…de la Western Mail:

Concerns were raised about the future of Welsh language teaching in Patagonia yesterday after it emerged there were uncertainties over its funding.

Since the launch of the Welsh Language Project in 1997, hundreds of students a year have enrolled on Welsh-language courses in the province, with experts crediting the courses as having saved the language there.

The Welsh Assembly Government has funded up to three Welsh teachers a year to visit Patagonia to teach Welsh for one academic year. But this year, despite the school year having started in the province in March, no teachers have been appointed and no funding announced.
Jeremy Wood, a writer based in the town of Esquel, said there were now concerns as to the scheme’s future, particularly in the current financial climate….

Matthew Rhys

…de la Western Mail:

Hollywood actor Matthew Rhys has made an emotional return to Patagonia for the filming of his new movie.

The Cardiff-born actor has just arrived in the Argentinean region for the beginning of shooting of a film called Patagonia.

He will star alongside Brecon actress Nia Roberts in the Welsh-language picture due to be released later this year.

On Wednesday, Rhys revisited a group of locals he first worked with during a re-enactment of the epic trek of 30 men and 200 horses to discover new lands in Patagonia in 1885.

Rhys described the journey – which he completed back in 2005 – as the “best experience of his life” in a documentary capturing the trek for BBC Wales.

The 30-minute film has now been translated into Spanish and was shown to locals for the first time last night, four years after it was shot, with Rhys the guest of honour at the premiere...

Atestantoj de Jehovo & la Kimralingvo en Patagonio

...de la BBC:

As we drive past, my shaky Spanish is just good enough to read the sign that shows this is going to be a new church for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Getting back to the house of my host in Gaiman in Patagonia that night, we find a phone message from that very church.

They need some help. A translation for their new sign. They want it to be bilingual.

No, not Spanish and English. Spanish and Welsh.

Because this is Welsh Patagonia, the place where, in 1865, emigrants came from Wales seeking a refuge where they could speak their own language and practise their nonconformist religion in peace.

Menter Patagonia

...de la Daily Post:

Two Welshmen have gone to Patagonia to help teach Welsh to Argentinians – including many who are of Welsh descent.

James Williams and Dyfed Sion will be staying there for 10 month s and will be the first two to work for a new project called Menter Patagonia.

The aim of the Mentrau is to facilitate the use of Welsh on a community level.

This scheme will be a partnership set up through the following organisations Mentrau Iaith Cymru, Yr Urdd, the Argentinean Welsh Society (Cymdeithas Cymru Ariannin), and The British Council.

Meirion Prys Jones

…de icWales:

The chief executive of the Welsh Language Board has come under fire for making 20 work trips to foreign countries in the past two years, it has emerged.

Detailed information released to the Western Mail shows that since the beginning of 2006, Meirion Prys Jones has been to Brussels seven times, to Amsterdam three times, to Bolzano in Italy and Dublin twice each, as well as taking single trips to Barcelona, Helsinki, the Basque Country, Strasbourg, Brittany and Friesland.

Many of the trips are in relation to two international networks of minority language groups.

The cost to the Welsh Language Board was around £3,200. Some of the trips were paid for by other publicly-funded organisations.

Monmouth Conservative MP David Davies said, “I can understand why he would take the occasional trip abroad, but this seems way over the top.

“I would have thought his first priority was the Welsh language. Strangely, he has not visited the only place abroad where Welsh is spoken – Patagonia.”

Jonez Williamz

...de la Daily Post:

It is hard to believe that MC Mabon first tickled a microphone with legendary hip-hop act Y Tystion over a decade ago.

Not that his music can really be described as 'hip-hop' these days; the truth is that Mabon, aka Gruff Meredith, is a genre-hopper par excellence, rooting his idiosyncratic take on Welsh life firmly in the rudiments of quirky rock with splashes of hip-hop colour.

His latest collection, Jonez Williamz, was recorded largely in the Patagonian town of Gaiman – it was the first Welsh-language record to be made in the former Welsh colony – and was released on Copa last month...

Patagonio

...de la Agence France-Presse:

"In five or six generations, Welsh blood has spread widely across Patagonia," Coronato said. In the Chubut province where the population is well over 400,000 he estimates about one person in four has a pure-blooded grandparent and some 5,000 people speak the Welsh language here.

The Welsh heritage and the language revival are most evident in the town of Gaiman, which is well known for a large number of low brick or stone buildings and quiet streets lined with a large number of teahouses.

One called Plas y Coed run by Ana Chiabrando Rees was opened by her great-grandmother in 1944….

…"My mother didn't speak Welsh, but I learned from my grandmother and great-grandmother," says Rees, who now teaches Welsh in Gaiman and made her first trip to Wales a year ago.