Author: Brian Foster

Free mediator training

A mediator is a person whose work involves promoting communication and understanding between members of Gypsy, Roma or Traveller communities and any public authority, such as schools, health services, council departments, government agencies, landlords. The course is primarily for community members.

  • Are you a member of the Gypsy, Roma or Traveller communities?
  • Do you, in the course of your work, promote understanding between Gypsy, Roma or Traveller communities and public bodies?
  • Would you benefit from a total of seven days, high quality residential training, completely free of charge?
  • Could you be available between the 4th and 8th of December 2012, and for a follow-up course in March 2013?
  • Do you fancy a trip to Brussels in January?

When, where and how?   Click here

“The real intercultural mediator has a good knowledge of the “cultural codes” of the community and of the institution, is impartial and focused on improving communication and cooperation and on stimulating both parties to take responsibility and to be actively involved in a change process”

Has Big Fat Gypsy Wedding affected your children’s education?

David Enright, the solicitor who led the successful campaign to challenge the Channel 4 “Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier” campaign has asked any families whose children have experiences abuse or attacks related in any way to the broadcasts or advertising campaign to contact him at d.enright@howe.co.uk or  phone 0800 157 7070

Alternatively send a message through ACERT.

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How low will Channel 4 stoop?

A Guardian report shows the efforts that Channel 4 went to achieve the stereotypical and sensationalised images used in the advertising campaign recently criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority.

A Channel 4 art director tried to persuade the photographer working on its censured Big Fat Gypsy Weddings poster campaign to take pictures of “a very young girl pretending to be a bride” and also a “dirty kiss … with tongue” in a revealing email.

Pablo Gonzalez de la Pena, an art director with the broadcaster, emailed Elisabeth Blanchet, the photographer commissioned to deliver images for the controversial “Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier” ad campaign, in January asking her to “do what it takes” to get the controversial shots he wanted.

In the email de la Pena suggests he wants to see a photograph with “a dirty kiss between a couple, with tongue”; “a toilet, ideally an outdoor one [where] we can see the tail of a wedding dress coming out from it, like a bride has just used”; and “a very young girl pretending to be a bride”.

The photographer, who refused to cooperate, gives her side of the story with powerful examples of how  the selection and choice of images and cropping exaggerated Channel 4s racist perceptions.

Channel 4 grilled over Bigger Fatter Gypsier campaign

Evidence compiled by ACERT was used by MPs on the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, meeting on the 16th October, to challenge senior Channel 4 managers about the impact of the Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier billboard campaign on children. The evidence was gathered from teachers subscribing to the trav-ed mailing list.

The following day, David Enright, who spearheaded the campaign which resulted in the Advertising Standards Authority finding against two of the four adverts, was named “Solicitor of the Year” by the Law Society.