Welsh language Learner of the Year recognised

This week Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan presented the annual Welsh Language Learner of the Year Award to Sergeant Krishna Chauhan.

The award recognises the year’s outstanding Welsh learner, and the person who has shown the most commitment, drive, and passion for learning Welsh over the past twelve months.

During their deliberations, the judges who are part of the South Wales Police Learning & Development team were particularly impressed with Krishna’s enthusiasm, positivity, and efforts to develop and improve her Welsh skills.

Receiving the award, Krishna said:

“When I was informed about the award, I was so surprised and honoured. My journey learning the Welsh Language began when I moved to Cardiff from London in 2008. I began learning Welsh in the Workplace with Gwent Police, successfully completing my Level 1 course.

“As someone who speaks and understands Gujarati, Punjabi, Hindi and Spanish I was passionate about learning a language native to a country I now live in. When I transferred to South Wales Police in 2017, I was delighted to see that I could make progress and enrol onto the next level, and really enjoyed learning and was delighted to have the opportunity to become more proficient.

“As I’ve progressed I’ve been supported by my manager as well as our Welsh language trainer Heulwen who has been a constant source of support and encouragement. With this support I’ve been able to complete Level 4/5 this year. The courses are well organised and the content is relevant to my role as a police officer. As well as the formal learning I try to attend the informal ‘siop siarad’ sessions when I can, and use Welsh in work where possible.

“From a personal point of view I will continue to learn and use opportunities to practise my Welsh. My children were brought up in Wales and so they learnt it at school and I now have two granddaughters who will be learning Welsh so it will be nice to be able to read with them and learn together.

“I am very proud and humbled to have received the award and would encourage anyone who has ever thought about learning or improving their Welsh to give it a go.”

Presenting the award, Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan said:

“I’m delighted to recognise Krishna’s efforts and congratulate her on her well-deserved success. As always there is stiff competition as we have a large numbers of South Wales Police officers and staff making the effort to learn and improve their Welsh-language skills. They do this through our learning and development courses and also in their own time.

“In recognising Krishna’s success it’s also important to pay tribute to Heulwen Jones our Welsh Language Trainer and the Learning and development team. Heulwen continues to provide our learners with fantastic support, and we are grateful for her continued inspiration and guidance.

“As an organisation we continue to develop and improve the policing services we offer, whether our communities choose to access these in Welsh or English. The fact that so many of our officers and staff want to learn and improve their Welsh is reassuring and also inspiring. I’ve no doubt that the determination and passion shown by Krishna and other colleagues will help us achieve our goal of making South Wales Police a truly bi-lingual organisation.”