Our campaigning work revolves around collaboration with the Gypsy and Traveller community and other partners. We work with community activists on their grassroots campaigns, fighting for better policies and practices for London’s Gypsies and Travellers. Our campaigning work is closely related to our policy work, striving for equality and inclusion.
If you are a Gypsy and/ or Traveller and want to get more involved in standing up for your community and influencing decision-making, please get in touch at info@londongandt.org.uk.
“No one speaks up for us. We want London Assembly members, the council, to back us for new sites, new stopping places”
Mena Mongan
Allies
The struggles faced by Gypsy and Traveller communities often overlap with other communities – for example, those facing systemic racism, policing and border violence and housing injustice. We are always looking to build strong relationships and work with allies in connected social justice movements. If you are part of a group with shared aims and want to explore how we can be stronger together through joint campaigning please get in touch at info@londongandt.org.uk.
The London Gypsy and Traveller Forum
One way to get involved in standing up for your community is to attend the London Gypsy and Traveller Forum. This is an open meeting of Gypsy and Traveller Londoners, support organisations, professionals and elected representatives, usually held quarterly. The main aim of the Forum is to influence the Mayor of London’s strategies. More information on the forum page or from info@londongandt.org.uk.
Past campaigns
Nowhere left to turn
LGT ran a campaign to highlight the way that draconian laws have eroded the lives and culture of Gypsies and Travellers, and how the introduction of the new Police Act effectively criminalised the lives of nomadic people – leaving them with nowhere to turn. Find out more
We are all so many things…
‘We are all so many things…’ was a community-led anti-discrimination campaign that challenged public perceptions of Gypsies and Travellers, asking why people only ever see their ethnicity, not their worth. Find out more
We are Londoners too
In 2009 we mobilised the Gypsy and Traveller community to respond to Boris Johnson’s London Plan, which failed to treat Gypsies and Travellers in the same way as any other Londoner in need of secure accommodation. By the end of the second consultation period nearly half of all the responses from the public on the London Plan were from Gypsies and Travellers.
Ten years later, the campaign message “We are Londoners too”, was used again to reinforce the demands of the Traveller community for a fairer policy. Find out more
We still count
Our “We still count” campaign, started in 2014, responded to the Government’s proposed changes to the definition of Gypsies and Travellers in planning policy. The new definition only included those who could prove they were travelling for work, excluding the majority. After the new planning definition and Housing and Planning Act were adopted, LGT continued to challenge these changes. Find out more