Reem Ahmed

Wales Online • 8th September 2024

The men who have changed their ways as a national emergency is declared

Cal Roberts remembers the moment when he realised his behaviour could be intimidating towards women. He was taking apart a piano in his living room, when one of the wires pinged off and stuck into his hand. "I lost my temper and I hit the thing with a hammer about five times," recalls Cal, 34. "I turned round and my girlfriend was crying - and even though it wasn't directed at her, I realised I'm six foot five, I'm 17 stone, she's five foot five and tiny - I'm an intimidating presence. It upset...

Wales Online • 11th August 2024

Couple behind Foo Fighters music videos to transform landmark Welsh building

The email pinged unexpectedly into Ceri and Emlyn Davies' inbox near the end of 2020. It was from Sony Music and it only had four words: 'Foo Fighters' in the subject line and 'Call me' in the body. "It was pretty rock and roll," laughed Emlyn, 44.

Wales Online • 8th March 2024

The women at the heart of a Welsh town whose name is known around the world

Everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone gets a chance to share theirs. We walk past thousands of people in our lives, but never know anything about the experiences that have shaped them. There's even a word for it: 'sonder' - the realization that every passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Wales Online • 28th January 2024

The rainbow house where Morgan Ridler's parents are using their grief to help

There is a street in Swansea which the locals call 'Rainbow Road'. It winds through the town of Gorseinon and its kerbs are painted in striking technicolour. If you follow the rainbow underfoot, you'll soon find 'Rainbow House', situated about midway along the road. You can't miss it.

Wales Online • 14th August 2023

Homelessness and high rises, dereliction and diversity on a road of change

Khalid Asfi sits on the pavement, leaning back against a grubby wall. He gazes impassively at a disposable coffee cup in his hands, seemingly lost in deep thought and tuning out the rumble of cars on the road in front of him. He's cocooned inside a grey puffer jacket, its hood pulled over his jet black mop of hair. To an onlooker, his solitude and stillness feels incongruous with the Thursday afternoon rush hour. I bump into Khalid at this spot - the northern end of Dumballs Road in Butetown, C

Wales Online • 29th June 2023

The massive row about a sewage pumping station in a beloved Cardiff park

A community fighting to stop part of their much-loved local park being developed for a sewage pumping station will have their day in court today at the Civil Justice centre in Cardiff. To coincide with the launch of the judicial review brought by the Llandaff North residents association, we've looked in detail at why Welsh Water wants to build a station to pump sewage in the historic Hailey Park green space and why the campaigners believe Cardiff council should have given it more scrutiny befor

Wales Online • 16th October 2022

The Cardiff recording studio taking Wales' hip-hop scene by storm

When he was 16 Nathan Misra decided to take his budding music career seriously. But, like so many Welsh creatives, the young rapper from Barry felt he needed to leave Wales in order to do so. For one thing making music wasn’t exactly in vogue when he was growing up. “People didn’t really understand it because not many of us really did it. Especially from Barry, there weren't many of us who did it, really,” says Nathan, now 26. “So I used to get a lot of hate for that. When I started doing it a l

Wales Online • 18th September 2022

Inside the oldest and largest Hindu temple in Wales

When you go looking for the temple, you'll notice the spires first: three gold-topped white domes rising high above the surrounding rooftops. Today, they are stark against a blue September sky, proudly overlooking the maze of terraced houses below. As I round the corner, the rest of the palatial structure emerges - a sudden, breath-taking shift in the ordinary suburban landscape. This is the Shree Swaminarayan Temple in Grangetown, Cardiff, which proclaims itself as the oldest and largest Hindu

WalesOnline • 13th August 2022

Inside Cardiff's thriving Hare Krishna community

It's Sunday afternoon and a man stands alone at the corner of Bute Street in Cardiff. As people bustle in and out of a convenience store next door he is conspicuous among the crowd for his shaved head and white robes. Behind him is an open door and a faint and tempting aroma of Indian cooking wafts out onto the road. After we approach and greet the man he ushers us inside. Beyond the door there is a set of stairs at the top of which are more men dressed in robes. We take off our shoes and are l

WalesOnline • 16th July 2022

The boxing club that's helped transform a deprived community

A boxing club is helping to transform one of Cardiff's most deprived communities. Members and coaches from Tiger Bay Amateur Boxing Club (ABC) in Butetown described how the gym has helped local young people to find jobs, open up about their mental health, stay off the streets, and practise respect and discipline. Wasem Said founded the club in 2018 with the intention of giving Butetown a "positive narrative", which he believed was "needed and necessary". Starting "from nothing" the club, which

WalesOnline • 21st May 2022

Wales' forgotten greatest athlete who was robbed of immortality

Just over a century ago, Cecil Griffiths had a glittering athletic career ahead of him. At just 20 years old, he won gold at the 1920 Olympic games in Antwerp for the 4 x 400m relay, making him to this day the second youngest of all British track and field athletes ever to win an Olympic gold medal. It was no mean feat for the working class Welsh runner, who hailed from a poor family in Neath and had been headhunted by the highly selective Surrey Athletic Club. A contemporary newspaper article

WalesOnline • 3rd March 2022

The poignant stories we heard sitting on Cardiff's After Life bench

When Lucia Theaker lost her father in 2019, the circumstances were "bittersweet". Thousands of miles away in Nepal, he was climbing Mount Everest Base Camp to raise money for Marie Curie when he tragically died after losing oxygen on the mountainside. "But it was amazing, because he raised £11,000 in the end for Marie Curie," Lucia says proudly, "and I think to myself: base camp, Everest - what a place to be if that's the last place you're going to be. And he's potentially saved all those other

WalesOnline • 16th January 2022

Inside the tattoo removal clinic where deep regrets are erased with lasers

What do a cluster of stars, a rose and a lotus flower all have in common? It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but for three women in Cardiff, who have these very designs tattooed on their bodies, it's anything but a laughing matter. Years ago, their tattoos were innocent enough - the product of teenage whim, or an ex-partner's suggestion. But now, in a small laser clinic tucked away on Whitchurch Road, the rose-tinted glasses of youth have been swapped for protective goggles. Read all

WalesOnline • 16th January 2022

The market at the centre of a community that's days are numbered

If you're looking for somewhere to find lifelong friends, you probably wouldn't expect a giant metal warehouse in the middle of an industrial estate to be your first port of call. But the generations who have frequented Cardiff's Splott Market for more than four decades have forged bonds as strong as its corrugated metal walls. Operating as a car boot sale every Thursday and Saturday, and a market proper on Sunday, this historic gem of the city has offered a safe haven for people young and old

WalesOnline • 31st October 2021

'Racism is still a big issue' Three generations on being black in Cardiff

As Black History Month comes to an end, WalesOnline has spoken to three generations about what it means to be black in Cardiff. All born and raised in the capital city, they opened up about the racism they've faced throughout their lives, the changes they've seen in attitudes to race over time and what they believe still needs to change in the capital and beyond. You can read all our stories on Black History Month here. Here are their stories. 17-year-old Tia Camilleri, who's in her final ye

WalesOnline • 24th October 2021

The quiet crisis on some of the most deprived streets in Wales

Virtually everyone has been affected by the perfect storm of problems that has been brewing all over the country. Gas, electricity and fuel prices have skyrocketed, food is becoming scarcer and more expensive, and it's more difficult than ever to get a doctor or dentist appointment, especially face to face. But now the cut in the £20 Universal Credit uplift has exacerbated these existing problems for those living in Wales' most deprived areas - and as we move into the winter months it's only s

WalesOnline • 5th June 2021

Once-thriving Welsh communities left ghost towns when summer ends

The year is 1974, and Welsh language band Edward H Dafis have just released their new track ‘Ty Haf’. The catchy tune has fans up on their feet, singing along and clapping in time to the melody. But the cheerful number delivers a darker lyrical message, striking a political chord that reverberates across Wales. ‘Ty Haf’ - which literally translates to ‘Summer Home’, or, more appropriately ‘Second Home’ - spotlights a storm brewing in rural and coastal communities in Wales in the 70s. Wealthy ou

WalesOnline • 16th May 2021

The state of Cardiff city centre after a year of lockdown

When business owners Ceri and Ellie Steed gaze out from the windows of their premises in the heart of Cardiff, they are confronted with a rather bleak view. A long row of empty shops across the street stares blankly back at them. Many of them were cleared out months ago, their windows now painted over and boarded up. The mother-daughter duo, who own Exitus Escape Rooms on Queen Street, were forced to say a temporary goodbye to their workplace when lockdown was announced in March 2020. But they