Including the Missing Voices of Disabled People in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities
Published on 1 January, 2020.
All four nations of the UK have produced numerous policy documents in recent years, expressing the need for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities to be treated more fairly and criticising the high levels of discrimination and oppression they routinely experience. These reports have had little effect and discrimination against GRT communities across the UK remains rife, despite the range of anti-discrimination legislation which offers protection in terms of race and disabilities. The current project was designed in response to a funding call from the Big Lottery Community Fund to identify the ‘missing voices’ of Disabled people. The voices of GRT Disabled people were identified as ‘missing’ by a project group led by the University of Worcester in partnership with Shaping Our Lives Service User and Disability Network, a userled organisation. Surveys, interviews and focus groups were arranged via ‘community connectors’, within England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, this project being the first to explore issues of disability within GRT communities. Findings were that stigma and shame were often associated with a range of Disabled people in regard to their various sensory, cognitive and neurodiverse conditions, learning disabilities or physical impairments, mental health issues or long term health conditions. These issues have not traditionally been openly discussed within many GRT communities