Southwark Travellers Action Group (STAG) has been running for over five years.
The group is based in Peckham, south London, and works with travellers to improve standards of living and provide information, advice and advocacy.
STAG also offers training and consultation to their residents on sites and in housing. The staff team consists of Tricia Bowie-Phillips (Co-ordinator), Kirsty Suttle (health worker), Anne-Marie O’Brien and Shirley Joyce (community development workers) and Dave Fisher (part time outreach worker).
Outreach
Shirley explained: "We have four settled sites in Southwark and also offer an outreach service to the Westway site in Hammersmith. We work alongside partnership agencies to provide information and training and work to break down the barriers that exist through poor communication and historically, years of entrenched discrimination.
"Traveller children are the most likely to be bullied at school out of all ethnic minority groups and need support and encouragement to overcome these problems and have the confidence to take up training opportunities and take part in mainstream activities.
"We recently took on a youth work student to work alongside STAG to organise activities and events for the young Travellers. We took the young people on a trip to a youth centre in Bristol, where they met other young people and joined in with their five a side football.
Development
"They enjoyed the work so much that they requested that we started our own five a side team when we got back. For us, this was a great example of football bringing people together.
"We were recently lucky enough to meet with the FA and win a small award to do a piece of work over the summer with some of our young people, developing a five-a-side league.
"If this goes well, we would like to apply for further funding to make it a permanent activity. We are going to be running a series of sessions over August/September with a football coach and hope to use the local facilities at Brimmington Park."
STAG will be using their grant to fund a six-week football course this summer. They also hope to establish five-a-side leagues for both boys and girls.
