Directions: From the Temple’s Reception, at the top of the steps to Right Hand side you’ll see the word ‘Peace’ above the doorway – follow through this archway (through 2 doorways), to the bottom of the stairwell.
The north and south wings of the Temple were always devised as offices for organisations leading Wales’ work towards Peace and Health – initially, the Welsh League of Nations Union (WLNU) in the ‘North’ wing, and the Wales National Memorial Association for the Eradication of Tuberculosis (WNMA) in the ‘South’ wing. Each had separate entrances at the ends, as well as through the Temple’s reception vestibule, with the postbox for the WLNU remaining to this day.
The League between the World Wars was one of Wales’ biggest volunteer led social movements, with up to 60,000 members active in over 1,000 communities across Wales, and campaigns with a global reach. Following WW2, with creation of the United Nations, the WLNU morphed into UNA Wales from 1946, with CEWC – the Council for Education in World Citizenship – taking forward WLNU’s global learning work. By the 1973, both organisations supported creation of the Welsh Centre for International Affairs as a new overarching body to bring together global work across multiple sectors, alongside UNA Exchange to facilitate global youth volunteering. For 4 decades all 4 organisations co-existed and worked together; but from 2010 onwards, with the challenges of austerity, they pooled resources and merged to become WCIA’s global learning, global action and global volunteering arms.
Despite the grand title, WCIA is quite a small charity, with a core staff of 10 covering work Wales-wide. The corridor is shared with other international organisations and networks such as Fairtrade Wales and Dolen Cymru, the Wales Lesotho Link – so as the founders intended, the Temple continues to act as a hub for Welsh Internationalism into the future.
