Gender Equality in Action 

Lawrlwytho Adnoddau - Download Resources

Summary:

Inspired by a group of Gypsy Traveller girls in West Wales, this project looks at education/opportunities/inequalities within the GRT communities in our schools. ILG and partner schools in Wales, Spain and Romania are working together with GRT pupils in their respective countries to look at barriers that impact on them having equality of access/social inclusion within society and within the communities themselves.

Less than 5% of GRT pupils remain in upper secondary education and it is a problem shared by the three partners/regions. GRT children who are travelling may face interruptions and a lack of continuity to their education, and whether mobile or not, children/young people from the GRT communities or any traveller culture, do not stay in secondary education after the age of 12/13.

The aim of the project is to change the negative perceptions and this is hoped to be key in increasing attendance; transfer rates to secondary school; retention in secondary education and attainment. The project is currently exploring ways to minimise these barriers. Research is being collected in all partner schools where good practice in engaging families is being shared in the form of up-to-date accounts and online or face-to-face meetings. Many GRT girls are often denied the right to continue into further education by more traditional family members. This project is working with GRT families, their children and wider community at truly looking at issues from a gender equality angle. All participants, including the pupils, discovered that other communities overseas, encountered similar problems. Working together they are looking at how this can be improved across all regions. The inequalities in communities is not just limited to GRT communities therefore it is hoped that, at the project end, the development of a guidance document in Intellectual Outputs (IO) 1 & 2 will enable the sustainability of the project as this guidance document will be transferable to other marginalised groups of pupils.

This project was funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme.

Intellectual Outputs

IO1 – Partners from each region worked collaboratively with their pupils to develop interview questions that the GRT pupils would like to put to a senior official within each country’s government/school/education body. Working together and taking the suggestions from each region, the final interview questions were compiled and the pupils were videoed conducting the interviews within their home countries to officials chosen by the school.

IO2 – Guidance Document. Partners from each region agreed a Lesson Plan format. Lessons were created by each region on Gender Equality and an understanding of the GRT community. The lessons form part of the guidance documents as exemplar lessons that could be adapted/used in schools in the future.