About
Roma Support Group
The group provides advice and advocacy, a children and youth programme, sport and art programmes, cultural projects, social activities, a befriending project and vocational training to Roma refugees, migrants and asylum seekers from Eastern Europe living in London.
The Roma community from Eastern Europe started arriving in London from about 1993 onwards. Estimates vary on the size of the new East European Roma population as they enter the country as either a Polish person or a Czech person, but not as a Roma, and so figures can be misleading but there is a conservative estimate of approximately 8,000 Roma people in London, of which over 2,500 are clients of the RSG. The majority of our Roma clients live in Newham, but there are sizable populations in Hammersmith and Fulham, Harringey, Erith, Barking and Dagenham and Waltham Forest.
The majority of our clients are Polish Roma, but we also have sizeable groups of Czech, Slovak and Russian Roma. They are strongly bonded into large extended families, on average approximately 200 person clans which in turn constitute part of the larger grouping - tribes. There are many Roma tribes in any one country, therefore our work cuts across tribal affiliations. Tribes are differentiated from each other by difference in language, cultural nuances as well as shared memory and oral history. Elders have an important role to play as they sanction the re-evaluation of Gypsy lore in a continually changing environment.
The majority of people we work with are musicians, instrumentalists, dancers, vocalists etc, whose creative energy and artistic talents have been appreciated by many art organisations and festivals in London (Respect Festival, Coin Street Festival, BBC) etc, for well over 5 years now. They are not only sought after performers and artists, but also teachers of musical skills which have been lost in this country. Many individuals from our project are involved in the giving of educational workshops in schools, which promote an understanding of Roma culture and contribute to a tolerant society.
