‘Temple Friends’ Volunteering and Placement Projects

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Temple Friends

WCIA’s heritage work has been heavily driven by volunteer participation. Though WCIA doesn’t have dedicated onsite heritage staffing, through ‘Temple Friends’ and WCIA’s broåder volunteering team, we aim to offer regular access to archives and collections, and scope for students to gain work expeience through hands-on projects. These are usually organised through structured ‘dropin sessions’ on specific days (usually Wednesday afternoons, by appointment). Find out more about our recent heritage volunteering activities:

‘Our Heritage Our Stories’

Volunteer Projects May-July 2024

We regret that due to lack of funding, we are unable to offer paid roles or casual / drop-in support; but if you are interested in volunteering regularly through Temple Friends, or are a student seeking a work experience placement, please contact heritage@wcia.org.uk (including as much detail as possible on your skills, interests and development needs).

Testimonials – Student Placement Blogs

WCIA’s ‘peace heritage’ work has involved many hundreds of volunteers and students over recent years, and we have a number of opportunities for internships, casual volunteering or work experience either online or at Wales’ Temple of Peace in the heart of Cardiff. Meet some of WCIA’s recent Heritage Placements and Volunteers:

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Peace Heritage Volunteers helped with transcribing ‘Annie’s Diary’, a record of the 1923 Welsh Women’s Peace Petition to America

What sort of practical tasks have Temple Friends helped with?

Peace Heritage Placements working on digitisation of materials from the 1938 Opening of the Temple of Peace

  • Library Cataloguing – completing searchable listings of books held in the Temple’s Council Chamber,
  • Archives Cataloguing and Reorganisation – assisting with selection and appraisal of the Temple’s considerable archive holdings, reorganisation into thematic collections and development of an online Archives Database.
  • Collections Cataloguing – photographing and recording artefacts and curating an online showcase for the Temple’s Collections
  • Digital Archives Audit – supporting migration of digitised archival materials from WCIA’s Flickr to People’s Collection Wales accounts, and curating into organisational and thematic collections.
  • Digitisation of new / undocumented archival materials from the Temple’s Archives & Collections
  • Temple Tour guides to support visitors exploring the spaces of Wales’ Temple of Peace (building from our online ‘Temple Tours‘ and features such as ‘Architects of Peace‘)
  • Peace Garden Memorials Trail for mobile phones / online devices; using social media to share stories behind the Peace Garden memorials and to illustrate / bring to life WCIA’s Memorials Trail Map and onsite information.
  • Digital Timeline of Peace History stories from the last century, enabling people to explore themes, movements and periods of time, and connect to source materials / wider references.
  • Popular Culture Features – drawing together an entertaining resource detailing the Temple in Film, Screen and Popular Culture, from a set for His Dark Materials / Sherlock / Dr Who, to major historic events.
  • Digitisation of Temple Archives collections: Curating, indexing and organisation of documents from movements such as the Freedom from Hunger Campaign, United Nations Association, UNA Exchange / International Volunteering, the Writings of Lord Davies, etc; and producing structured feature articles that enable future researchers to analyse further.

WCIA Volunteering Records and Project Resources