Gypsy and Traveller Community Advocacy and Support
You should not need professional language, perfect literacy or confidence with systems before somebody takes you seriously.
Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC provides culturally appropriate advocacy and practical support for ethnic Gypsy and Traveller people experiencing discrimination, exclusion or difficulties with services.
We listen first, help make sense of what is happening and support people to decide what they want to do next.
Advocacy on your terms
Advocacy should not replace one person speaking for you with another.
Our role is to help make your voice harder to ignore. We can help you understand your options, identify the central issue, prepare for conversations with services and put concerns into clear language without taking ownership away from you.
We will not contact an organisation, share information or take action without discussing it with you first.
What people ask us about
Racism & discrimination
When language, treatment or decisions appear discriminatory, we can help you set out what happened and consider the next step.
Education & services
We may be able to help with difficulties involving schools, health services, councils and other public bodies.
Letters, complaints & meetings
We can help people understand decisions, draft correspondence, prepare for meetings or ask an organisation to explain itself more clearly.
Being left out of decisions
We can support people who feel decisions are being made about their family without their voice, culture or circumstances being properly understood.
Communication that works for you
Many services rely heavily on forms, emails and complicated written information. That can exclude people before their concern has even been heard.
You can begin by telling us what has happened in your own words. Where possible, we can use telephone, voice message or email, and family members can be involved if the person seeking support wants them to be.
Literacy, digital access or communication style should never be mistaken for a lack of knowledge or credibility.
Not every problem is an individual problem
Sometimes a person comes to us with one complaint, one school issue or one difficult interaction. Sometimes that experience is part of a wider pattern.
Where we see the same barriers happening repeatedly, community advocacy can also help us identify what needs to change in policy, commissioning or practice.
We will not turn somebody’s personal experience into research, campaigning or public evidence without discussing consent and purpose properly.
What this service is not
PGT is a small organisation and cannot accept every request for support. We are not an emergency service and we do not provide regulated legal advice.
We cannot guarantee that a complaint will succeed or that an organisation will change its decision. We will be honest about our capacity, what we can realistically do and when another specialist service is better placed to help.
Planning applications, appeals and formal welfare reports are handled through our separate Planning & Welfare service.
Before contacting us
If there is a deadline, court date, planning date, risk of immediate action or another urgent date, tell us straight away.
It helps if you can tell us your name and preferred contact method, what has happened, the organisation involved, any important dates and whether anybody is already supporting you. Photographs or copies of relevant letters can help too.
Do not worry if you do not have everything. Contact us with what you know.
Ask PGT for support
Being ignored repeatedly does not mean your concern is not valid. Sometimes it means the system has become too comfortable with not listening.
Tell us what is happening. We will listen and explain honestly whether we can help.