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LUTON ROMA TRUST - Charity No. 1160404 ANNUAL REPORT September 2015 - September 2016 2 April 2017 Background Luton Roma Trust was formed as a registered charity on 10 February 2015 as the existing work with the Luton Roma community had grown to the point that the work warrented official charitable status. Martin Burrell had been appointed Chaplain to the Gyspies, Travellers and Roma for the Diocese of St Albans shortly after arriving in Luton in March 2009. Work had begun with the Romanian Roma community of Luton later that year and grew rapidly as a team was formed to meet the needs of these economic migrants to our town. In May 2011 Luton Roma Church was opened, meeting in Oakdale Methodist Church and later moving to other venues in Luton. From the outset the work with the Roma community of Luton was holistic in nature - seeking to help the growing number of families in every area of their lives - education, health, housing, access to employment, legal Greetings from Luton Roma Trust to all our supporters!

Transcript of Luton Roma Trust | Luton Roma Trust€¦  · Web viewLUTON ROMA TRUST - Charity No. 1160404....

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LUTON ROMA TRUST - Charity No. 1160404

ANNUAL REPORT

September 2015 - September 2016

2 April 2017

Background

Luton Roma Trust was formed as a registered charity on 10 February 2015 as the existing work with the Luton Roma community had grown to the point that the work warrented official charitable status. Martin Burrell had been appointed Chaplain to the Gyspies, Travellers and Roma for the Diocese of St Albans shortly after arriving in Luton in March 2009. Work had begun with the Romanian Roma community of Luton later that year and grew rapidly as a team was formed to meet the needs of these economic migrants to our town. In May 2011 Luton Roma Church was opened, meeting in Oakdale Methodist Church and later moving to other venues in Luton.

From the outset the work with the Roma community of Luton was holistic in nature - seeking to help the growing number of families in every area of their lives - education, health, housing, access to employment, legal matters, welfare. Team Leader Martin Burrell quickly realised that few of the community had adequate English to navigate civic life in the UK, indeed many were illiterate. In learning the Romani language he found himself in need as a translator in a growing number of areas of the families's lives. Meanwhile a growing team of volunteers was gathered to help the work forward.

Greetings from Luton Roma Trust to all our supporters!

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Formation of Luton Roma Trust

Our trustees are Martin Burrell, Bishop Richard Atkinson - Bishop of Bedord, Chris Neilson. We meet bi-monthly. The meeting is chaired by Chris Neilson. At the time of writing new trustees are being inducted to serve our trust.

Daily interventions on behalf of the Roma

A major part of our work as a trust is helping the Roma families establish themselves in the UK. On a daily basis we are helping them find somewhere to live, setting up National Insurance Number interviews, getting the children into school , helping the parents find work, registering them with a GP, sorting out issues they face with their vehicules, accessing welfare. In and through all this we help the families pastorally to deal with the massive shock of encountering another culture, language and civic system. We work hard at helping them to build trusting relations with the agencies we are in partnership with.

Appointment of a Roma Community Champion

As the need to increase our capacity grew, funding was sought (Metropolitan Migration Fund) to appoint a Roma Community Champion, and Assen Slavchev, a Bulgarian Roma, joined our team in summer 2015. Martin, now living in a 'house for duty' supplied to him by the Diocese of St Alban's, set up a daily drop in clinic for the Roma families at Beech Hill Primary School - Building Blocks Children's Center, Bury Park. The number of interventions taking place soon made it necessary to move the operation into the centre of Luton where we met with our clients at MacDonalds. At the time of writing we are seeking funding for a premises of our own.

Martin, Sarah & Assen

at Building Blocks Children's Centre

daily interventions for our Roma families

Bishop Richard with the Roma clients at MacDonal's - Luton

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Having sought guidance from the London based Roma Support Group, we set up an internet-based database (Lamplight) in which we recorded every substansive intervention we made with our clients. In the year Sept 2015- Sept 2016 we undertook 306 interventions. As at 1 April 2017 we have 624 clients - though we are aware that the Roma community of Luton is far greater.

As the work has progressed, we have formed partnerships with a growing number of statutory bodies in Luton and beyond:

Local level: Luton Borough Council, Education Welfare Servies, Citizens Advise Bureau, Youth Offending Service, A growing number of local schools, Penrose Housing, Police - have appointed a special office to the G,T, R community of Luton, Luton Churches Together, Luton Food Bank.

National: DCLG Gypsy Liasion Group, DfE – Roma Specialists Group, National Asotiation of Traveller’s Teachers (NATT+), AIRE center- London based legal advice for migrant communities, Roma Support Group, Advisory Council of Education of Roma and Travellers (ACERT), Migrants Organise, Migration Yorkshire – National Roma Network, Travellers Movement, World Beaters - Arts and Culture, The Diocese of St Alban's, Churches Network for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma (chaired by Martin Burrell),

International: Roma Networks - A Europe-wide network - Martin represents UK, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal - EU Commission – Roma Platform, Open Society Foundation – Roma Initiatives section, Roma organisations from Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Checz, Macedonia and Serbia

Music Project

Aware of the latent musical talent of our Roma children, we set up a partnership with a London based group, World Beaters. Thanks to the amazing support and encouragement offered to us by the Building Blocks Children's Centre at Beech Hill Primary School, we were able to launch a weekly music session for our children. Before long we moved the sessions to Blenheim Crescent Baptist Church in order to accomodate the growing numbers of children coming. Parents too play an active role in the music making. From the outset this programme has been wide ranging - using music as a means to realease creativity, enhance social interaction and sensitivity, raise awarenss of language, and grow a positive sense of Roma community. Some of our sessions were conducted in hard to reach Roma family homes.

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The music project has been funded by Bedfordshire and Luton Community Foundation - Luton London Airport fund. Also by the Near Neighbours fund and an Arts Council Grant.

AIRE foundation

In the year 2015-2016 year LRT worked in close partnership with AIRE as we sought to bring legal help to our clients. In the early days help was needed as we apealed on behalf of our clients who were being refused National Insurance Numbers. Help was also offered for clients who were being given absurdly high quotes for motor insurance. Prior to Romanian and Bulgarian citizens being allowed to access the work market, we helped our clients to find self employed work and helped them process their papers with the help of a local accountant and other agencies.

Health & Education

Martin and Assen have remained in constant demand to act as translators at medical interventions and at local schools. Our Roma families find it very hard to adapt at first the the UK education system and our team works constantly to raise the attendance levels and educational attainment of our children. There have also been some serious problems with bullying in which we have acted as mediators and peace makers.

In September 2016 Paul Sayers was appointed as our Roma Education Champion. Since the creation of this new post - which is a key part of our determination to see long term community transformation - we have been approached by two schools to work in partnership to enhance the educational attainment of their Traveller and Roma children.

Team Training

Martin and Assen attended a training offered by our funders, the Metropolitan Migration Foundation, "Changing the Narrative".

Martin attended a four day conference in Hungary of the Roma Networks (21-24 Sept 2016) at which representatives from 27 EU nations shared in their work with the Roma communities of Europe.

Website

In September 2015 we lauched our own website. Difficulties in updating the site will now require us to relaunch the site in 2017.

Luton Roma Trust and World Beaters in partnership together - bringing music to the Roma children

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Luton Food Bank

Many of our families stuggle to make ends meet and the local Food Bank has made LRT a referring agency. During Christmas 2015 the food bank had a large surplus. They generously supplied us with food parcels for 40 families which were delivered across Luton to the Roma families we are working with.

Greetings from one of our families!

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