Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month in Wales 2011

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month 2011 has come to end and what a month it has been.

The annual celebration event at Newport’s Riverfront Theatre and Arts Centre (30th June) was designed to challenge while celebrating the contribution that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people have made to the local community. A week long residency, funded by Newport Children and Young People’s Partnership, involved children from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds drawn from six schools across Newport, coming together to develop and present a performance of unity entitled ‘A SUITCASE FULL OF SHOES’.

The event, which included traditional storytelling, wagon painting workshops and video, included a short animation film by young Gypsies and Travellers from Cardiff’s Shirenewton site (Gypsy Ways) that was put together with the support of the BAFTA winning animation company Cinetig.

Gypsy Ways is a film made with young people from the Shirenewton Gypsy and Traveller site in Cardiff. It uses a combination of animation and live-action to follow the reminiscences of Laurel Price as she recalls growing up in a traditional Vardo and her life on Leckwith Common in Cardiff in the 1970’s before settling on the permanent site of Rover Way in the docklands of Cardiff.

Bringing a European wide perspective on the situation of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in locations from Istanbul to Invergordon, Stockholm to Southampton and Çannakale to Cardiff, Were Dr Adrian Marsh & Dr Thomas A Acton who presented challenging workshops on the topic of Romani rights, history and cultures.

The NoFit State Circus worked with young people on the Rover way site over a period of 10 weeks to put together an engaging performance for an audience of family, friends and the settled community.

We also presented workshops in Welshpool and Swansea leading up to the month.

We would like to thank all of our funders and supporters.

Follow this link for more information: the riverfront Magazine 2011

Please click here to visit Romani Arts Flickr Album: www.flickr.com

Please click on the link to download GT poster:

GT Poster Eng-Welsh PRINT        GT Poster Eng-Welsh PRINT

All of the events received plenty of positive press coverage notably from the BBC & Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month).

We look forward to next year, and something even bigger.

We are very fortunate indeed to have established such a good working relationship with the Romani Cultural and Arts Company. It has enabled us to engage, using the arts as an engagement tool, and better assist and support the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community in South Wales as they face the very real issues and barriers to accessing support and service provision’.

Michael Flynn – Project Director Black Voluntary Sector Network Wales.

————————————————————

Llanelli Celebration of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Culture and Heritage Event.

The Llanelli Multicultural Network(LMCN) in partnership with the Llanelli Town Neighbourhood Policing Team(NPT) held a very well attended and successful event on Monday 22nd November celebrating Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Culture and Heritage. It was well supported by members of the settled and traveller communities. The event featured story teller Teleri Grey who told stories of her family’s history in Wales. Speeches of support were given by Assembly member Helen Mary Jones AM and PC Adrian Ward traveller Liaison Officer with the NPT .

There were lots of interactive craft activities for people of all ages to enjoy.

Helen Mary Jones was also on hand to present an award to 11 year old Chloe Lee from Coedcae School. Chloe had designed the winning entry in the “design a logo” for the “Gypsy Traveller Learning and Future Employment” project. She received a voucher for a new bicycle. Senior Project officer with the LMCN said after the event” It was so nice to see so many people from the community here. Especially encouraging was the chance to meet with families from the local Traveller community. The father of one family said it was time for his community to have a voice “ Paolo added “ we can now make a start at have a meaningful dialogue with the Traveller community and see how we can all work together”A huge thanks to everybody who came and took part in the events.

Pictures of the event are available on their “facebook” page ..llanelli multicultural network or visit our website www.lmcn.org

————————————————————

Wrexham helps celebrate Traveller history month

An event to celebrate Traveller history and culture recently took place at Belle Vue Park in Wrexham. Over 100 people joined the occasion, with exhibitions and displays of traveller traditions, arts and crafts, dancing, cooking and other activities in the park.

Organisations that provide public services were among those in attendance, taking the opportunity to learn more about the culture in a positive way. The event was staged as part of National Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, and was opened by the Mayor and Mayoress of Wrexham, Councillor Ian Roberts and his wife Hilary.

The Mayor said: “The day was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate Traveller history and for the Traveller community to share its traditions with other Wrexham residents.” Local traveller Eva Delanhey, who helped organise the event, added: “It was a pleasure to celebrate our traditional event with so many local people.”

The Romani Cultural and Arts Company is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.