Traveller Focus week (Northern Ireland) is an initiative organised by the Equality Commission to raise awareness of its role in relation to the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 (including informing people of their rights and responsibilities through advice and information, promotion and training and providing legal representation to those who believe they have been discriminated against), to achieve Traveller participation and promote good relations. Visit the Equality Commission NI website for further information.

Setting the record straight on Travellers
Lurgan Mail: Published Date, 27 November 2008
By Staff reporter

WITH Traveller Focus Week taking place next week the 'MAIL' got in touch with Craigavon Travellers Support Group about the issues facing Travellers in Craigavon.
Amongst other things the group took the opportunity to 'bust the myth' that Craigavon has the biggest population of Travellers in Northern Ireland.

The spokesperson for the group gave some examples of the conditions Travellers live in:

"Picture this... a six-year-old girl trying to get ready to go to school with access only to a cold water tap to wash herself and her brothers and sisters, no access to electricity to heat her home.

"A young mother comes home from hospital with her new born child, her home is cold, she too has no access to running water to wash bottles or herself and no access to electricity to heat her home or heat her bottles to feed her new born.

"A 65-year-old woman continually moved from one place to another and having no place to call home. This is daily life for some Travellers."

The group outlined some of the inequalities in health and well-being between Travellers and the settled community:

"There is more than double the rate of stillbirths amongst Travellers compared to that of the settled community. Infant mortality rates at three times higher than the national rate.

"Traveller life expectancy is much lower than the settled community. The average life expectancy for a Traveller is 55-60 years - comparable to the overall life expectancy in Northern Ireland in the 1920s.

"92 per cent of Travellers have no GCSEs or equivalent or higher. Traveller children are more likely to be bullied more than children from other ethnic minority backgrounds."

The spokesperson for the group said: "When you mention Travellers, people automatically think of the images they see portrayed in the media and forget that these are people, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters – families who choose to live in a different way to settled people.

"Lately there have been reports in the local media that Craigavon is being targeted by Travellers and that Travellers sites should be spread more evenly across Northern Ireland. Craigavon Travellers Support Group (CTSC) would like to put that myth to bed.

"If you look at Northern Ireland as a whole and according to the NIHE Accommodation needs assessment approximately 22% of Travellers live in Derry/Omagh, 25% in Belfast and 48% in the Southern Health and Social Services Trust area. This 48% is spread over Armagh, Newry, Craigavon and Coalisland. There are four Traveller Support Groups in this area who provide support services to the local Traveller community.

"These are: Armagh – supporting about 50 - 60 families, Newry – supporting about 60 – 70 families, Craigavon – supporting 60 – 80 families, Coalisland – supporting 100 – 120 families.

"This is evidence that Craigavon does not have the largest proportion of Travellers in the province. Currently in Craigavon there are approximately 60 to 80 families living in the area, 40% of which are housed, with 60% of which are nomadic."