The Romani Cultural & Arts Company has been operating successfully for over fifteen-years, since its establishment in 2009. In the winter of 2025, the decision has been taken by the Director and Board of Trustees to close the charity, and cease operations. The decision was taken in the context of an increasingly difficult funding landscape, with little in the way of sustainable income for the Romani Cultural & Arts Company that would cover our running costs and allow for significant development in the future.
Despite frequent applications for core funding from central government, and from culture, equalities, arts, and education budgets, no such financial commitment has been pledged to the RCAC, even as non-GRT led organisations working in the field have been awarded funding consistently for more than a decade. The small-scale awards of discreet funds that the charity has received to deliver particular consultation exercises have only amounted to a small percentage of the charity’s overall budget during our fifteen years of operation.
Funding security has also been pursued by the RCAC with Arts Council of Wales, in an effort to assure the future of the organisation in continuing our work. Sadly, these efforts have also been unsuccessful, with Arts Council of Wales also failing to follow through on discussions regarding a much-promised “strategic partnership” intended to allow longer-term, more sustainable work to take place. Other major funders, such as the BBC Children in Need programme have been strong supporters of much of the Romani Cultural & Arts Company’s most ambitious work with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children and young people, but in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, have been unable to continue their support due to their new strategic demands.
Despite the lack of long-term funding commitment from government and its associated agencies the Romani Cultural and Arts Company is extremely proud of the many remarkable achievements toward equality and recognition for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers that we have made through our arts and culture programmes during the last fifteen years. To preserve these achievements for future generations, one of our priorities during the closing months of the RCAC has been to work closely with national Welsh culture and art institutions in order to ensure that the exciting cultural capital, and valuable new knowledge, facilitated and generated by RCAC programmes over the past fifteen years will be secured as part of their permanent collections for the benefit of all. For many institutions this will be the first content by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people that they hold, allowing GRT voices to help both reflect and inform the Wales of today.
And so it is with regret that as of March 31, 2025 the Romani Cultural & Arts Company will close its doors, ending a decade-and-a-half of important and ground-breaking work with Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities in Wales.