A Community Development Trust nurtured by Community Renewal Trust specifically for Roma people
Community Renewal: Rom Romeha is our neighbourhood team in Govanhill, Glasgow.
Govanhill is the home to Scotland’s largest Roma community and is also the second largest Roma Community in the UK.
Our team features mainly multilingual Roma employees, and has been active in the area for over a decade supporting the Roma Community in Govanhill
Focusing on the Roma community in Glasgow, our aim is simple:
Whatever you want to talk about, we will listen, we will connect you to the help you need, build on your strengths and stick with you for as long as it takes*
Drop in Tuesday – Friday 10am-4pm or get in touch with our team:
☎️ 0141 237 4457
romromeha@communityrenewal.org.uk
Community Renewal: Rom Romeha, 311 Calder Street
Some of the specific services we can offer are detailed below including work covering employment support, family support, housing/benefits, health/wellbeing and empowering residents improving the neighbourhood together.
We are also part of a number of thriving networks of local partners and can help connect you to their support too, just ask. We are open almost every week day – please just come in whether you want to talk about your needs, your family or your neighbourhood.
Our work in includes:
Roma employability
The Pathways to Education, Employment and Progress project is based in our Govanhill office. We are able to provide Roma communities with support to find and sustain work in jobs where they can expect better pay and conditions. Many Roma people are exploited by employers or experience unacceptable discrimination.
We can help with CVs, training, ESOL, and confidence building. We have links to some employers and expertise setting people up in self-employment.
We offer support in Slovakian and Romanian.
EUSS support for the Roma Community
We have successfully supported over 4000 Roma community members to make an application and we still provide support to people who wish to remain in the UK.
We are no longer funded to deliver this service but continue to provide advice for existing clients
Housing and Benefits
Our team has supported hundreds of families to stay together, find decent housing and apply for financial support.
Whatever your enquiry, get in touch.
Social Connections – Youth Work
Anyone can come to get support from our team, and we provide social groups to engage residents and encourage connections
Govanhill Roma Youth Project (GRYP) is a youth project where young people and youth workers collaborate to organise a range of opportunities for Roma young people to take action on their interests, needs and concerns.
The youth group also visit local organisations including schools and local events to share their knowledge on Roma history and the Roma experience
Govanhill Roma Youth Project | Facebook
Social Connections – Adults
Our team run regular Men’s Group and a Sewing Group.
Support from Caledonia Funeral Aid
Our neighbourhood team can help link residents up with our city-wide and national programmes tackling funeral poverty by offering community support, affordable cremations and impartial advice on funeral practicalities, funeral costs and the emotional toll of funerals.
Homes for Health – Govanhill
We are collaborating with People’s Health Trust to deliver their Homes for Health programme in Govanhill.
The project – funded by People’s Health Trust using money raised through Health Lottery Scotland – addresses the growing problem of unfit private and social rented homes and their effects on tenants’ physical and mental health.
The community of Govanhill has a high number of families, especially migrants with large families, living in unsuitable damp, poorly insulated and overcrowded tenement housing. Every year we meet hundreds of vulnerable people in such conditions, whose health is directly affected, but we can offer limited options to address the systemic issues of housing. Collaborating with local partners such as Govanhill Law Centre, social landlords and Positive Action on Housing we are hoping to explore new community-led ways to address this through collective social action. This is possible following years of work with Peoples Health Trust to establish many community groups and a local community forum who feel empowered to make change happen. We are sure we can make an impact on the physical health and mental health of local residents this way, with a particular focus on Govanhill’s Roma, but it is a test of change and will take time to see what can be achieved.
More about Homes for Health and the People’s Health Trust
View the website and leave feedback here
Homes for Health is a priority within the Health Justice Fund. It is a collaboration between the Trust and experts from housing, community, and racial justice charities, delivering projects that respond to the growing problem of unfit private and social rented homes and their effects on tenants’ physical and mental health. At the centre of the work are marginalised people whose intersecting identities make them more likely to be affected.
Empowering Govanhill through our Local Conversation
We are in the final stages of delivering the The Local Conversation in Govanhill funded by People’s Health Trust using money raised through Health Lottery Scotland.*
Local residents are ever more in control over the design and approach of Community Renewal Rom Romeha and our priorities. This is in part done through our Community Forum and in particular The Local Conversation in Govanhill which is funded by People’s Health Trust using money raised through Health Lottery Scotland.
The resident’s vision is: empowered, sustainable, collective Local Conversation community action at the heart of campaigning for Govanhill e to be a beautiful place, where no one gets left behind and a healthy community thrives. The way we have been asked to do this is to build capacity of the community to design, deliver, promote and govern their own sustainable community action including helping them grow their own fundraising, diversity, and lobbying.
Local residents have established three priorities: 1) bringing the community together to reduce social isolation and to collectively take action on housing and rights issues; 2) improving the local environment; and 3) giving young people opportunities for their voice to be heard.
More about the People’s Health Trust
People’s Health Trust is an independent charity investing in local communities to help create a society without health inequalities through funding, support and using evidence and learning to influence change. It works closely with six Community Interest Companies raising money through The Health Lottery.
www.peopleshealthtrust.org.uk
Please note: To a lesser extent we can try to support others in Govanhill and Roma outside Glasgow but this is on a case by case basis. Some people don’t understand why we focus on Roma communities rather than being equally open to everyone. This is because we have an equity approach: by doing as much as we can for this particular community which has for so long been disadvantaged systematically and continues to face discrimination, we are hoping to restore more equal opportunities for them in Scotland society. It’s about fairness deep down.
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