Recently, I was reminded about the need for ‘breaking down the barriers of ignorance’.  Following the shocking news of 24 men in Bedfordshire being kept as slaves on a traveller site, I overheard a couple of people I consider as friends only 4 feet from me talking about the arrest of 4 Traveller men for being gang masters.  They looked at me and dropped their voices so I could not hear the rest of what they said.  What I did hear said was ‘A lot of this goes on with them; more than we know!’ and about Dale Farm I keep hearing people say ‘If they are Travellers why don’t they travel?’

The first  incident shocked and saddened  me because these were people who consider themselves to be open minded and not racist and yet they can come out with comments and generalisations for a whole race of people like this. However, these two incidents have made me realise how important Romany Theatre Company’s work “improving the wider community’s understanding of what it means to be Gypsy, Romany, or Traveller” is.  Our Atching Tan Project has made several contributions towards this work including the Atching Tan Radio Drama series and our Atching Tan Education Pack both of which are available on our web-site

The next step of the Atching Tan Project is research. We want to carry out research on Gypsy, Romany, Traveller Women and the 2 World Wars.  To undertake the research we are looking for volunteers who are able to work on their own to look at one of two different topics:-

• The role of Gypsy, Romany, Traveller women in the community over the last 50 years.
• The role of the Gypsy, Romany, Travellers in the first and second world wars

We will be asking volunteers to decide which topic they would like to research and to carry out that research.  Carry out the research using the Internet, books, libraries any sources that they have access to.  The volunteers will need to give at least 20 hours to their research and writing a report of what they find.  As part of their volunteering there is an opportunity to gain the OCN Developing and Using Research Skills accreditation as part of their research.

We still need a few more volunteers and for those interested we are holding a volunteer meeting at our office in Cambridge on Wednesday 5^th October 2011 at 3pm.  If you are interested, please contact us and we will give you further information of what you will need to do and can give you directions to Llandaff Chambers.