We are very proud to announce Designed By Us: Gypsy and Traveller Voices for Inclusion Health, a new five-year partnership between Leeds Gypsy and Traveller Exchange (Leeds GATE) and Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund.
Together, we will be working to turn Gypsy and Traveller experience and leadership into action that tackles health inequalities driven by structural racism and discrimination across areas of Yorkshire.
Both organisations have strong community relationships built over many years and work directly with and for ethnic Gypsy and Traveller communities. Between us, Leeds GATE and PGT bring more than 45 years of experience of working alongside our communities.
But this project is not about simply documenting inequality again.
Our communities already know they experience some of the worst health inequalities of any ethnic groups. Families have been telling services for years about people dying younger, unequal access to care, services that do not understand their lives, and the trauma of repeated bereavement, including suicide at very high rates.
We also know something that is too often missed in conversations about health inequalities: Gypsy and Traveller families do an enormous amount to keep each other well.
People care for children, older relatives and family members who are unwell. Families step in where systems have failed. Communities carry knowledge, relationships and support that are rarely given the same weight as professional expertise when services decide what people need.
Five years to do things differently
The funding forms part of The National Lottery Community Fund’s flagship Health Inequities Partnership. Leeds GATE and Proud Gypsy Traveller were selected as one of just nine high-impact partnerships from hundreds of applicants across the country.
That gives us something community organisations are rarely given enough of: time.
Five years to listen properly.
Five years to build community leadership and peer research.
Five years to understand what is happening locally and regionally.
And five years to take what families tell us into the places where services are designed, commissioned and changed.
“Our communities don’t need another project that simply tells them how unequal their health is — they already live that reality. Designed By Us gives us five years to listen properly, understand what is happening on the ground and take that knowledge into the places where decisions are made. For me, success is change that families can actually feel, and that our children and grandchildren inherit.”
Violet Cannon, Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC
Designed by the people it is for
The priorities will be shaped by Gypsy and Traveller people throughout the five years of the project. We are not beginning with a fixed list of answers.
There are, however, areas our communities have already told us need attention, including:
- mental health;
- welfare needs assessments;
- accommodation and the health impact of where people live, particularly Traveller sites;
- ethnicity recording within the NHS and the need to properly distinguish different ethnic communities; and
- young people’s priorities.
The work will also look at the wider factors that shape people’s ability to stay well, including accommodation, education and employment.
For PGT, this also means being explicit about structural racism. Health inequality does not exist separately from the conditions people live within. It cannot be separated from housing and sites, education, poverty, trust in institutions, or generations of being treated differently because of ethnicity.
If we only treat the visible symptoms while leaving the cracks in the foundations untouched, we will keep repairing the same problems over and over again.
Community knowledge must carry power
Community-led research and systems change will sit at the heart of Designed By Us. We will be looking at what is happening on the ground and behind the scenes: where power is held, how decisions are made, what needs to change and how community knowledge can influence those decisions.
Gypsy and Traveller people are experts in their own lives. Our role is to make sure that expertise is properly recognised and listened to by services and commissioners, so systems work with people rather than against them.
You can also read Leeds GATE’s announcement about Designed By Us.
You can also explore more of PGT’s community-led research and policy and systems change work.
Over the coming months we will be sharing much more about Designed By Us, including opportunities for Gypsy and Traveller people to get involved, help shape priorities, take part in research and influence where the work goes next.
Designed By Us means exactly that.
Designed with our communities. Led by their knowledge. And aimed at changing the systems around them, rather than asking our communities to change themselves.
We are incredibly proud to be doing this work alongside Leeds GATE, and grateful to The National Lottery Community Fund for backing long-term, community-led change.