Travelling Travellers. An overview of the living conditions of travelling Travellers and existing supporting initiatives

Travelling Travellers. An overview of the living conditions of travelling Travellers and existing supporting initiatives

ENG: Travelling Travellers. An overview of the living conditions of travelling Travellers and existing supporting initiatives

NL: Rondtrekkende woonwagenbewoners. Een overzicht van de leefomstandigheden van rondtrekkende woonwagenbewoners en bestaande initiatieven ter ondersteuning

Travellers travel around for different reasons. While for some it is part of their specific way of life, in recent years an increasing number of Travellers in Flanders, Belgium have been forced to travel around due to a lack of encampment sites. This situation makes them vulnerable. Because this problem is relatively recent, however, the group of travelling Travellers has largely remained under the research radar until now. The aim of the present study, commissioned by the Flemish Agency for Home Affairs and conducted by the research institute HIVA, was therefore to gain more insight into the living and housing situation of travelling Travellers in Flanders, Belgium.

The research is focused on:

1) the living conditions and social participation of travelling Travellers,

2) the existing support, guidance and assistance for travelling Travellers.

Subsequently, policy recommendations based on the results of these two focus areas were made. Subject of the study were both Belgian and foreign travelling Travellers. Data was collected by various qualitative research methods, among which interviews with Travellers about their current and desired living situation and interviews with key figures such as practitioners and policy officers.

The resource is in Dutch language. 

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STEP – Family literacy project

The family literacy project (STEP 2015) investigated how family literacy initiatives might benefit mobile communities in Scotland through the design and implementation of three pilot programmes.

The pilot programmes ran in three different locations across Scotland with three groups of families: (1) Slovakian mothers in a Primary school in Glasgow, (2) Gypsy/Traveller families on a Traveller Person site in an educational outreach portacabin, Fife, and (3) with Gypsy/Travellers in a nursery/Primary school in the Highlands. The aim of the project was to identify approaches for programme delivery that would be relevant and meaningful to each specific community. For this reason, the structure and content of each pilot programme was designed in collaboration with participating families. Early consultation was achieved through a range of methods, such as informal social gatherings and activity sessions. The groups made suggestions that they felt would benefit their own situations and these were used to guide and structure the design of the activities.

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