Fringe Youth Conference, May 2005


The G&TLRC Youth Conference 2005, organised by CyberPilots and YWCA, was a great success with fabulous contributions by Young Gypsy Travellers. There was a full programme of events including workshops by the Children’s Society, Save the Children Scotland, London Gypsy and Traveller Unit, Traveller and Gypsy Community Development Project (Glasgow), Hull GATE/Northern Network, Richard O'Neil and Margaret Stokes.

Our Drawings about our lives as Young Gypsy and Travellers

The Young Gypsy Travellers spoke about how they felt to be Gypsy and Travellers and what they would like to say to politicians and leaders in the face of prejudice in the UK today. Here is an example of some of their work:

We need more sites
Schools should be aware of our culture. That is the problem I have. One teacher said “All Gypsies and Travellers are dirty and thieves”.
At the moment, I am living in my Granny and Grandad’s yard. We need more official sites.
Living on a Green Lane is very peaceful and you get more fresh air than living in a house, and you get closer to nature.
Need more transit sites, as there is only one transit site in Darlington.
You can get families who have lived on a site for years and a new family pulls on and makes a mess, all Travellers get blamed.
Travellers are either all good or all bad to settled people, they don't see it might be just one family causing trouble.
We cant get doctors or anything and we get treated differently too. It is not good how people treat us. Police look down on us.
We need more transport, as I am stuck in the countryside.
I would like electric and water please


These comments were read out by Janie Codona at the main G&TLRC conference. The Young People’s art and comments will be made into a pack that will be sent to the leaders of the main political parties and other interested political bodies to represent the views of Young Gypsy Travellers.

Read about us in Travellers Times (document as pdf)

The organisers, Tammy Furey of FFT’s CyberPilot Project and Lucy Russell from the YWCA, would like to thank all those who attended and made the event so special.