‘Designed By Us’ launches to drive real change on Gypsy and Traveller health inequalities

Leeds GATE and Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC have announced a major five‑year partnership, Designed By Us, funded through the National Lottery Community Fund’s flagship Health Inequalities Partnership programme. The project aims to turn Gypsy and Traveller experience and leadership into action that tackles health inequalities driven by structural racism and discrimination across Yorkshire.

Leeds GATE CEO Ellie Rogers said the long‑term investment would allow the partnership to build real change with and for Gypsy and Traveller families. “We have been working tirelessly around health inequalities for our members for many years, and we are so grateful for this long-term funding from the National Lottery for us to create long-term change,” said Rogers. “This is about our communities and families in the present. But it’s also about our young people’s futures and working so the next generation don’t have to inherit the same barriers.”

Proud Gypsy Traveller’s Violet Cannon said the project was an opportunity to shift power and ensure community knowledge shapes decisions. “Our communities don’t need another project that simply tells them how unequal their health is — they already live that reality, said Violet Cannon. “Designed By Us gives us five years to listen properly, understand what is happening on the ground and take that knowledge into the places where decisions are made. For me, success is change that families can actually feel, and that our children and grandchildren inherit.”

The organisations say Gypsy and Traveller people continue to face some of the worst health inequalities of any ethnic group — including people dying younger, unequal access to care, services that don’t understand their lives, and the trauma of multiple bereavements, including suicide at very high rates. At the same time, they emphasise the strength within Gypsy and Traveller communities: people supporting each other, keeping families going, and caring for one another even when systems have failed them.

The partnership will focus on changing the structures that keep things unequal and unjust. Community‑led research and systems change will be central, with the team looking at what is happening locally and regionally and asking what actually needs to change — from everyday factors affecting people’s health to the decisions made behind the scenes about how services are designed.

Together, Leeds GATE and Proud Gypsy Traveller bring over 45 years of combined experience working directly with Gypsy and Traveller people. They say their role is to ensure community expertise is recognised and listened to by services and commissioners, so that systems work with people, not against them.

Although priorities will be set by Gypsy and Traveller people throughout the five‑year project, several areas are likely to become key focuses, including:

• Mental health
• Welfare needs assessments
• Accommodation, including sites
• Ethnicity recording in the NHS and disaggregation
• Young people’s priorities

The partnership will share more information over the coming months, including how people can get involved.

Leeds GATE press release/TT News

(Image courtesy of Leeds GATE)