Announcing Designed by Us: a new five year partnership tackling health inequalities for Gypsies and Travellers

We’re very proud to announce we have been funded by the National Lottery Community Fund for a five year exciting partnership, ‘Designed by Us’ led by Leeds GATE with Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC, led by Violet Cannon.

Our partnership will be working to turn Gypsy and Traveller experience and leadership into action that tackles health inequalities driven by structural racism and discrimination, in areas of Yorkshire. Both organisations have strong community links built over many years and work directly with and for ethnic Gypsy and Traveller communities. Our aim is to address the root causes of health inequalities by changing the structures that keep things unequal and unjust for our communities.

The funding comes as part of the National Lottery Community Fund’s flagship Health Inequities Partnership. We were very proud to be chosen as one of 9 “high-impact” partnerships out of hundreds of applicants across the country.

This work towards change is so needed. We know Gypsy and Traveller people have some of the worst health inequalities across all ethnic groups. People in our communities have been telling us for a long time about the things that affect their health: people dying younger, unequal access to care, services that don’t understand their lives and the trauma of multiple bereavements including to suicide at very high rates.

But we also know Gypsy and Traveller people do so much to care for each other, support each other and keep families going, often when systems have failed them. At Leeds GATE, our services co-designed with members reach hundreds of people every year including our health access, outreach and mental health support. However Gypsy and Traveller people deserve and need access to a full health offer that includes them and their families.

Key to this project’s success is community input leading research and systems change. We are going to be looking at what is happening on the ground, locally and regionally, and asking: what actually needs to change? This applies both to the everyday things that affect people’s health, and what’s happening behind the scenes too — where power is held, what decisions get made and how we can influence the effects on communities.

Leeds GATE and Proud Gypsy Traveller together have over 45 years combined experience working directly with communities, who are experts in their own lives, and what helps or prevents them from staying well. Our role is to ensure this is properly recognised and listened to by services and those who design and commission them, so they can work with people, not against them.

We want the priorities to be set by Gypsy and Traveller people throughout the five years of the project. However we have some examples of some things we know need to change that could become some of our focuses, such as:

• Mental health
• Welfare needs assessments
• Accommodation, especially sites
• Ethnicity recording in the NHS and disaggregation
• Young people’s priorities

These will focus on a broad range of factors that we know influence health and community members ability to stay well, including the impact of accommodation and where we live, education and employment.

We will be able to share much more about the project over the next few months, including how people can get more involved. We feel strongly that the Designed By Us project can only ever be as good as the community members involved in it.

This is about our communities and families in the present. But it’s also about our young people’s futures and working so the next generation don’t have to inherit the same barriers.

Keep an eye out for more updates from us and Proud Gypsy Traveller and please get in touch with any questions.