Swansea University’s innovative app developed to support Android devices

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‘Gofalu Trwy’r Gymraeg’ (Caring through Welsh), an app created by Swansea University, is now available on both Apple and Android devices thanks to additional funding from the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol.

Initially funded by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlathol’s grants scheme, the app includes helpful healthcare-related words, terms and phrases. Its aim is to support and enable individuals working in the healthcare sector to use Welsh with patients, thus ensuring that Welsh-speaking patients can discuss their conditions using their preferred language.

The app was based on a booklet created by Angharad Jones, lecturer at Swansea University’s College of Human and Health Sciences. The forty page booklet was given to the college’s students in 2011, with the aim of encouraging them to practice their Welsh in order to be able to offer a first class service to the public. By turning the booklet is an interactive learning tool, this handy resource is now available for everyone to use as needed.

Gofalu Trwy'r Gymraeg Small Owain Huw, Information Services Manager of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol: "Since the original app development, the Google Android market has continued to grow, and so the app’s development to the Android platform is a great way of ensuring that as many people as possible have access to the benefits of this useful app”.

In April 2014, it was announced that ‘Gofalu Trwy’r Gymraeg’ had been shortlisted in the IT and the Welsh Language category of the Welsh Government’s Welsh Language in Health, Social Services and Social Care Awards 2014.

The IT and the Welsh Language Award carries a £1,000 prize, and Swansea University’s hope, if the app is successful, is to use the prize money to develop a similar project.

Dr Gwenno Ffrancon, Director of Swansea University’s Academi Hywel Teifi, who nominated the app for the award, said: “The app has been incredibly popular amongst healthcare sector workers, and our hope, if the app is successful at the Awards, is to build on its success and develop further resources that will help healthcare students throughout Wales to be able to speak to patients in Welsh, and to encourage students to take advantage of Welsh-medium courses in universities, which will help build their confidence to use their Welsh in the workplace”.

The Awards will be presented at the Words into Action Conference on 19 June 2014 at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay.

The app can also be downloaded via the App Store on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gofalu-trwyr-gymraeg/id668425270?mt=8