Whats Janie Codona smiling about?

Funding boost for ground-breaking Gypsies and Travellers health plan

£10,000 has been put towards a healthy living and emotional well-being project for Gypsies and Travellers in South Buckinghamshire. Here Janie Codona from One Voice 4 Travellers, receives the cheque.

The project, which started this summer, is aimed at four Gypsy and Traveller sites: Iver, Wapsey Wood, Dudley Wharf and Mansion Lane.

The project will be specially targeted at the health of young mums and older women - research shows Traveller women often set aside their own health needs when caring for others – and will see special ‘health advocates’ trained up on site.

Dr Margaret Greenfields who will help with the health advocate training says the NHS recognises the need to ‘fast-track’ Gypsies and Travellers because of “the extraordinary health inequalities experienced by members of these communities”. The timing of this “ground-breaking project”, she said, could not have been better.

The £10,000  came from Slough Social Fund.