Friends, Families and Travellers is a registered charity in the United Kingdom. It campaigns against discrimination against Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in the UK. [1]
Friends, Families and Travellers is a registered charity in the United Kingdom. It campaigns against discrimination against Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in the UK. [1]
The group has accused Channel 4's 2010–2015 series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and its 2020 Dispatches programme "The Truth About Traveller Crime" as promoting discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers. [2] [3]
In July 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, it conducted a survey which found that 74% of GP surgeries they visited in March and April broke NHS England guidance by refusing to register nomadic patients. [4] The charity has also noted that the pandemic brought awareness to, and exacerbated, existing inequalities relating to Gypsy and Traveller communities. [5]
In 2021, it campaigned against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, calling its tightened restrictions on unauthorised campsites as "draconian" [6] [7] [8] and an infringement on nomadic people's human rights. [9] Ivy Manning, the group's engagement officer, said: "people living roadside will soon be caught in a catch-22 of potentially facing prison or being forced to move into bricks and mortar" [10] and that "entire lives could be criminalised for exercising the right to roam and live nomadically". [11] Following these concerns, Cambridge City Council pledged to stand "in solidarity" with Gypsies and Travellers. [12] The group has also claimed that traditional events such as the Appleby Horse Fair will no longer be allowed to occur under the provisions of the bill. [13]
After it was revealed that Pontins had blacklisted people with Irish surnames from its holiday sites in order to prevent Irish Travellers using the sites, the group argued that such barring of Gypsies and Travellers from holiday camps, pubs and across the UK was commonplace. [14] [15]
The Romani people, also known as the Roma, are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Roma originated in the Indian subcontinent, in particular the region of Rajasthan. Their first wave of westward migration is believed to have occurred sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries. They are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are believed to be in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.
A trailer park, caravan park, mobile home park, mobile home community or manufactured home community is a temporary or permanent area for mobile homes and travel trailers. Advantages include low cost compared to other housing, and quick and easy moving to a new area.
Irish Travellers, also known as Pavees or Mincéirs, are a traditionally peripatetic indigenous ethno-cultural group originating in Ireland.
New Age Travellers are people located primarily in the United Kingdom generally espousing New Age beliefs with hippie or Bohemian culture of the 1960s. New Age Travellers used to travel between free music festivals and fairs prior to crackdown in the 1990s. New Traveller also refers to those who are not traditionally of an ethnic nomadic group but who have chosen to pursue a nomadic lifestyle.
The Romanichal are a Romani subgroup within the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. Most Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax. Romanichal residing in England, Scotland, and Wales are part of the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller community.
Dale Farm is a plot of land situated on Oak Lane in Crays Hill, Essex, United Kingdom. Until October 2011, it was the site of one of the largest Traveller concentrations in the UK, at its height housing over 1,000 people, along with the adjacent Oak Lane site. Although Basildon District Council had granted permission for the site to be used by a small number of Traveller families, no planning permission was given for the expansion of the site into land located within the Green Belt.
The Romani people are a distinct ethnic and cultural group of peoples living all across the globe, who share a family of languages and sometimes a traditional nomadic mode of life. Though their exact origins were unclear, recent studies show Kashmir in Northwest India is the most probable point of origin. Their language shares a common origin with, and is similar to, modern-day Gujarati and Rajasthani, borrowing loanwords from languages they encountered as they migrated from India. In Europe, even though their culture has been victimized by other cultures, they have still found a way to maintain their heritage and society. Indian elements in Romani culture are limited, with the exception of the language. Romani culture focuses heavily on family. The Roma traditionally live according to relatively strict moral codes. The ethnic culture of the Romani people who live in Central and Eastern Europe developed through a long, complex process of continuous active interaction with the culture of their surrounding European population.
The Appleby Horse Fair, previously known as Appleby New Fair, is an annual gathering of Romani people (Gypsies) and Travellers in Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria, England. The horse fair is held each year in early June, attracting roughly 10,000 Roma and Travellers, about 1,000 caravans, several hundred horse-drawn vehicles, and about 30,000 visitors.
Anti-Romani sentiment is an ideology which consists of hostility, prejudice, discrimination, racism and xenophobia which is specifically directed at Romani people. Non-Romani itinerant groups in Europe such as the Yenish, Irish and Highland Travellers are frequently given the name "gypsy" and as a result, they are frequently confused with the Romani people. As a result, sentiments which were originally directed at the Romani people are also directed at other traveler groups and they are frequently referred to as "antigypsy" sentiments.
Pavee Point (PP) is a government-funded non-governmental organisation based in Dublin, Ireland that was formed to improve the human rights of Irish Travellers and to bridge the economic and social inequalities between Travellers and settled people. Irish Travellers are an ethnic minority group that originated from nomadic tradespeople.
The Romani diaspora refers to the presence and dispersion of Romani people across various parts of the world. Their migration out of the Indian subcontinent occurred in waves, with the first estimated to have taken place between the 1st and 2nd century AD. They are believed to have first arrived in Europe in the early 12th century, via the Balkans. They settled in the areas of present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the 19th and later centuries, to the Americas. The Roma population in the United States is estimated at more than one million.
Scottish Romani are the Romani people of Scotland. This includes Romanichal and Lowland Roma.
The Romani people are known by a variety of names, mostly as Gypsies, Roma, Tsinganoi, Bohémiens, and various linguistic variations of these names. There are also numerous subgroups and clans with their own self-designations, such as the Sinti, Kalderash, Boyash, Manouche, Lovari, Lăutari, Machvaya, Romanichal, Romanisael, Kale, Kaale, Xoraxai and Romungro.
There are a number of traditionally itinerant or travelling groups in Europe who are known as Travellers or Gypsies.
The Romani people in Australia are citizens of Australia who are of Romani descent. They are sometimes referred to as Roma. Most Roma in Australia trace their roots to the United Kingdom and Greece, who in return trace their roots to northern India.
The Traveller Movement (TM) is a charity based in the United Kingdom that supports the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community and challenge discrimination against GRT people.
Laura Angela Collins is a London-based Irish Traveller activist and author.
Leeds University Library's Gypsy, Traveller and Roma Collections are one of the five Designated collections held by the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. The collections contain an extensive range of international books, manuscripts and archives relating to Gypsy, Traveller and Roma culture. The majority of the materials do not originate from within these communities, instead they encapsulate external representations.
Romani people have been recorded in the United Kingdom since at least the early 16th century. There are estimated to be around 225,000 Romani residing in the UK. This includes the Romanichal, Kale, Scottish Lowland Roma and a sizeable population of Roma from Continental Europe, who immigrated into the UK in the late 1990s/early 2000s and after EU expansion in 2004. They are considered part of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community.
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller is an umbrella term used in the United Kingdom to represent several diverse ethnic groups which have a shared history of nomadism.
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