When Gypsies and Travellers were made aware that the country was going into lockdown and our offices were to be shut we made sure our clients were supported and able to contact us.
All of our staff are now working from home and have been since the middle of March. The office phone lines were diverted to our homes where we are able to talk to our clients as normal.
Covid-19 has been a frightening and unusual time for many of us with people unable to get to shops and many people shielding due to health conditions that put them at high risk if Covid-19 is contracted.
Gypsies and Travellers Wales wanted to ensure that our clients were able to access food and essentials during this time. With the help of funding from Moondance and the Wales Resilience Fund we have been able to provide a food parcel delivery service every Wednesday to our clients who have been unable to get essentials due to the pandemic. Every Wednesday our staff collect all the food from FairShare warehouse and take it back to our offices and begin making the food into separate parcels for household which we then deliver around Cardiff in our cars.
Since we began providing food parcels in March we have been able deliver 199 food parcels to households, on average we are able to support 25 adults and 15 children each week. In total we have been able to support 642 people since March, 407 were adults and 235 children. The figures were collated on the 1st July 2020.
