A campaign to encourage people who have left North Wales to return home to set up businesses or find employment is already finding success.
The “Dewch yn Ol” campaign, which ran for three months from January, targeted talent who’d left Wales for work or education but wanted to come back and included eye-catching posters designed by Conwy based Ffwligans.
The message was to return to the region to live, work or set up a business, showing that North Wales is an area that offers well-paid work and plenty of support for startups.
Run by M-SParc in partnership with the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, Llwyddo’n Lleol, Bangor University, Darogan Talent, Gwynedd and Anglesey County Councils and others, the campaign is starting to produce results.
Many people across the UK with links to North Wales responded to the campaign and expressed their interest in returning to return.
One of those was Catrin Owen who had already decided that she wanted to return home one day, and detailed how excited she was to see the offer from M-SParc.
“I was born and grew up on Anglesey, but I lived in Brighton for four years, and before that in Cardiff,” said Catrin.
“My partner and I had decided that coming back to Anglesey was the intention one day.
“We feel that there is nowhere like North Wales, with the best beaches and Snowdonia not far away.
“During the pandemic, we were keeping an eye on what was going on in the digital world in North Wales, and it was exciting to hear about the community at M-SParc.
“I’m co-founder of a company, Kopa, a creative and business strategy agency that combines these two things to build growing brands.”
Catrin now lives and works in the area.
Originally from Caernarfon, Rhodri Farrer had been working in West Cumbria since graduating from Liverpool John Moores University in 2016, but his interest in the campaign enabled M-SParc to refer him to a job with Faun Trackway, Llangefni, where he now works.
He said: “When I started working in the nuclear sector, the intention was to come back to Anglesey to work on Wylfa Newydd, but since that was cancelled I’ve been looking for other jobs closer to home, but with no luck because either the job just isn’t a good fit for me, or I don’t know about opportunities. I saw this campaign advertised on LinkedIn and immediately signed up.
"We had a chat asking what kind of help I needed, followed by several emails about opportunities that came up – most of which I hadn’t seen elsewhere such as Indeed.
“Coming back is important to me because my partner has put up with me working away for years, and I have a business that I run with my brothers that I could contribute a lot more if I were home.
“I have a longing for the area in general, and I wouldn’t have left in the first place but for better work prospects, especially in the engineering sector. It’s great to see that those opportunities are starting to come to the fore here in North Wales.”
