Meeting Dates for Unity Plymouth at the Council House. www.unityplymouth.co.uk

26^th June 2010

31^st July 2010

21^st August 2010

25^th Setember  2010

30^th October 2010

27^th November 2010

18^th December 2010

Representatives/ Councillors are invited from various organisations. If you have an issue and would like it to be addressed then please tell us

Please feel free to attend. Bring your family and friends. All meetings are FREE to all members of the Communities.

Recreational facilities for children are provided.

Cultural food is provided  FREE by volunteers.

Venue- Council House next to Civic centre, City Centre Plymouth. All Meetings are 1.00-5.00pm.

If  you need further information please call:

Ikenna  07868834898

Chaz  07950957909

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU!

Since the dissolution of the Plymouth Anti Racism Task Force (ARTF) in April 2004 Fata He have continued to support a number of individuals and groups who deliver services to B&ME communities including the Plymouth Gypsy community.

As the recognised sub-regional B&ME infrastructure hub for Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay, Fata He with its partner B&ME organisations represents the B&ME Home Office funded Change Up infrastructure body in this sub region. Fata He received a small amount of funding in 2005 from the Change Up Early Spend programme to develop its capacity to take up position as lead B&ME organisation for the sub region.

The role of Fata He as lead B&ME sub regional infrastructure hub will be to:

Work closely with mainstream organisations to develop best practice and act in a supporting and advisory capacity in improving service access and provision for its excluded beneficiaries

Provide organisational development support to B&ME voluntary, community and business sector groups to help them grow and nurture their long term development

Develop a range of specialist provision through 4 sub regional locally based Forums and a sub regional representative Forum which meets the needs of B&ME people throughout the sub regional area.

Fata He plan to develop their services to fill identified gaps in the market. In essence we will develop a niche market of specialist services to add value to existing provision in the sub region. In order to make Fata He sustainable in the longer term, strands of delivery will be developed under four key areas:

B&ME Capacity Building

B&ME Social Enterprise Development

Asset Management

Consultancy and Training

In addition to the above and as previously highlighted we will develop, support and facilitate a sub regional infrastructure representative B&ME hub through the establishment of four local B&ME Forums in which Fata He will facilitate the exchange of information, provide networking and development opportunities for individuals and the Forum as a whole.

Our Vision is to
‘Build a sustainable, vibrant and cohesive B&ME voluntary and community sector in Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay through a number of strong, innovative, proactive and representational B&ME Forums and a sub regional infrastructure hub’

Through a facilitating and supportive approach enable the B&ME voluntary and community sector to play its full part in the delivery of local projects and services, participate in the local implementation of social and economic regeneration strategies and also to tackle in partnership the problems of social exclusion in B&ME communities.

Equal Opportunities Statement

Introduction

Fata he believes in equal opportunities for all people in our community and we try and put our policy into practice in everything we do. We aim to deal fairly, openly and honestly with people applying for jobs, our Directors, employees, and clients who use our services.

Fata He was created to help change the previous lack of opportunities for people in our area to benefit from and to participate in the social and economic regeneration of the area. We are particularly dedicated to ensuring that all sections of the community are able to participate in and benefit from Fata He activities and we take care to ensure that there are no hidden barriers which might prevent this.

Fata He also understands that because everyone is different, there is a need for its workforce and client base to reflect and be representative of the community it serves. We are dedicated to enabling people to access the jobs and economic improvements which we might help to create and support in our business and in all our activities, either in our sole name or in partnership with others.

Aims

As a community based social enterprise organisation, any black or ethnic minority individual living in, having a business in, or being a community organisation in our catchment area, can become upon invitation a director of our Management Board, entitled to attend meetings and vote, and to help in our activities.

Fata He is a social enterprise established to benefit black and ethnic minority groups, business, families, and individuals although no one from the wider community would be excluded. We are committed to helping with the social and economic regeneration of our area and the wider areas of the city, and actively attempt to improve opportunities for all people so that they can participate in all Fata He activities. We aim to improve the social, economic, health, quality of life and opportunities for all people in our community.

Fata He will not unfairly discriminate (directly or indirectly) against anyone because of, for example their race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, sex, sexuality, age, ability or disability, education, literacy, religion (or non-religion), political activity, trade union activity, marital status, domestic situations, being HIV positive, and whether people are in or applying for full-time, part-time or job share work. (These are examples only. Other forms of discrimination will be tackled whenever they.

http://www.fatahe.com/index.aspx

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Ian Hancock is a marginal man. Like all Romani intellectuals, he has had to live torn between the pariah status of his people and the embrace of a dominant culture which can hardly conceive of such a monster as an educated Gypsy.

Some Gypsies in this position accept this, and pass as non-Gypsies, keeping at a distance all their Romani relatives, and keeping silence at who knows what cost, to them and their own children, on all of their family’s past. But a sprinkling of such people find a personal liberation by joining Romani organizations where intellectuals can make a political contribution to winning a better place in society for their people. They have to face incomprehension by non-Gypsies, and often rejection by assimilated relatives, and the constant accusation that they are not “true Gypsies.” Face to face with the divided reality of their identity, they are like the man in Yevtushenko’s poem, strung out on a high-wire “between the city of yes and the city of no.”………………….

Foreword to the Patrin Web Journal edition

This book was the first in English to deal with the enslavement of the Romani people in Romania. When it first appeared in 1987, no one expected that massive political and social changes would begin to take place in Eastern Europe just two years later.  With the death of Ceaucescu in 1989 and the shift to democracy in Romania, many more documents concerning those more than five terrible centuries have come to light, and our knowledge of the nature of Gypsy slavery, and the implications it has for our understanding of the world view and character of those descended from it — the Vlax Roma — are just now beginning to be understood.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080802212237/http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/pariah-contents.htm

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I recently noticed that Lib Dem peer Lord Avebury has written a letter to the Conservative Party regarding its policy on Gypsies and Travellers. The policy, outlined in a green paper earlier this year, states that the Tories will provide stronger enforcement powers to “tackle unauthorised development and illegal trespass”.

In his letter, Avebury – an ardent campaigner on the rights of Gypsies and Travellers – argues that in its paper the party has expressed “no acknowledgement of the exclusion suffered by Gypsies and Travellers due to a national shortage of sites” and accuses their policy of being under-researched. He also argues that their stance will provoke community tensions in the run up to the election.

Criticism of the policy comes weeks after the government launched guidance encouraging local authorities to use ASBOs against Gypsies and Travellers. The Irish Traveller Movement in Britain wrote to the government criticizing the decision, a letter which was supported by Runnymede.

Lord Avebury calls for fairer Gypsy and Traveller policies

http://www.grthm.co.uk/un-statement.php

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Go to most museums, libraries and schools and nothing about our history and culture is kept or taught. The result is a widespread ignorance about who we are, which sometimes turns to hatred, fear and misunderstanding. In schools, children learn more about the Romans, Vikings or even fairies than they do about our cultures and what we have contributed to this world.

http://www.grthm.co.uk/index.php

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http://www.romnews.com/

http://www.exchangehouse.ie/

http://www.eu-romani.org/index.html

http://www.errc.org/