Dr Violet Cannon

Founder and Director of Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC

Dr Violet Cannon is a Romani Gypsy woman, community leader, researcher, advocate, author and experienced facilitator.

For close to three decades, she has worked alongside ethnic Gypsy and Traveller communities to challenge discrimination, improve services, protect culture and ensure that people speak for themselves.

Violet brings lived experience and professional expertise.

Neither is a substitute for the other. Together, they make her work difficult to dismiss.

Rooted in community

Violet was born into a traditional English Romani Gypsy family and spent part of her childhood living roadside.

Changes in law, the closure of stopping places and increasing restrictions on traditional work left her family facing choices that were neither free nor culturally neutral.

Moving into a house did not end the family’s Gypsy identity or relationship with travelling. It demonstrated something Violet has challenged throughout her career: accommodation does not define ethnicity.

Her work remains grounded in family, culture and strong relationships across Romani Gypsy, Irish Traveller and Scottish Gypsy Traveller communities.

Leadership and experience

Violet led York Travellers Trust as Chief Executive for more than eight years, concluding her role in September 2026.

During that time, she worked across advocacy, mental health, accommodation, education, policy and organisational development. She represented community evidence within local and national systems while helping create services that people could access on their own terms.

She is the founder and a director of Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC, where she leads work including:

  • Planning advocacy and welfare reporting
  • Community-led research
  • Health inequalities and mental health research
  • Policy analysis and consultation responses
  • Dialogue-led training
  • Heritage and archival research
  • Storytelling and creative practice
  • Community advocacy and systems change

Violet is also Chair of Moving for Change, bringing together Gypsy and Traveller organisations to strengthen collective voice and influence.

Professional knowledge and creative practice

Violet’s experience and professional development include:

  • Council of Europe-trained Intercultural Mediator
  • Experienced safer-space and dialogue facilitator
  • Deep Democracy facilitation
  • Systems change and structural inequality
  • Train-the-Trainer qualification through the University of Derby
  • Chartered Institute of Housing Level 3 training in Gypsy and Traveller site management and design
  • Community-led and qualitative research
  • Planning and culturally informed welfare assessment
  • Organisational leadership and governance
  • Community-led exhibition development and curation
  • Opinion and editorial writing
  • Scriptwriting
  • Storytelling and spoken-word development
  • Heritage, oral history and archival work

She also makes a mean paper rose!

She has delivered work for local authorities, health services, police, schools, universities, charities, museums, cultural organisations and community groups.

Honorary degree

In 2022, the University of York awarded Violet an honorary degree in recognition of her contribution to Gypsy and Traveller communities and public life.

The recognition mattered not because Violet needed an institution to validate her knowledge, but because Gypsy and Traveller expertise has too often been used by institutions without being properly recognised.

The title did not create her expertise.

It acknowledged work already carried out over many years.

Storytelling and creative work

Violet is the author of Gypsy Princess and Proud Gypsy Traveller.

She has led youth media, photography, oral-history and cultural heritage projects, including creative work shown at Tate Modern and exhibitions developed with Gypsy and Traveller communities in Doncaster.

For Violet, storytelling is not separate from advocacy.

The stories society tells about a community influence how its children are treated, whether its families are believed and which policies become publicly acceptable.

Taking control of the narrative is therefore part of taking back power.

Her approach

Violet does not believe that bringing a Gypsy or Traveller person into the room automatically creates equality.

Representation without power can still be tokenism.

Her work asks more difficult questions:

  • Who decided the priorities?
  • Who controls the budget?
  • Whose evidence is believed?
  • Who interprets what communities say?
  • Who receives the credit?
  • What will change afterwards?

She creates spaces where people can speak honestly, but she does not confuse conversation with action.

The purpose is change.

Work with Violet through PGT

Violet is available through Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC for selected:

  • Speaking engagements
  • Research and policy projects
  • Facilitated dialogue
  • Training
  • Planning and welfare work
  • Heritage and creative projects
  • Strategic partnerships

All enquiries should be made through PGT.