Recent research conducted for Ireland’s only publisher of books by children for children found that all Roma and most Traveller participants had never seen their communities reflected in books or school texts.
“This isn’t surprising, but it is shocking,” said Ciara Gallagher, creative director with Kids Own, which has been producing children’s books for 25 years.
The publisher, part-funded by the Arts Council, has produced over 40 publications where children collaborated with writers and artists.
“At the core of our work is really listening to children’s voices and helping the rest of society hear those voices too,” said Gallagher, who is also the CEO of Kids Own.
She said the 26 Roma and Traveller children involved in two publications in Cork this year “had a sense that they are often stereotyped and misrepresented”.
“They wanted to show the real us,” she added.
As well as working with Traveller and Roma children and young people, Kids Own has published books by young refugees and migrants, children experiencing homelessness, foster children and other marginalised groups, according to Gallagher.
Sligo writer Mary Branley who has been involved in Kids Own publications for over 20 years was not surprised that the 10 to 14-year-old Cork-based Traveller and Roma children told researchers they never see people like themselves in books.
“Guess what, no child has a voice. Where do you ever hear children’s voices except on the bloody Toy Show?” said Branley who was previously a resource teacher working with Taveller children in Sligo. “I feel very strongly that children do not have a voice, not in health, not in education, not in local government.
“Nobody consults them and if they do it is real half-assed”.
Having collaborated 21 years ago with Traveller children in Sligo on a collection of nursery rhymes called Charles Barley and all his Friends, she said there had been some progress since then in terms, for example, of their self-esteem.
In a 2018 Kids Own publication, This Giant Tent, she worked with Traveller children from Ballina, one of whom wrote: “I never heard of any discrimination in Ballina”. The same child also said her hopes for the future would be that “Travellers would be more popular and that settled people would know more about us”.
Branley said that 20 years ago hardly any Travellers attended post-primary schools but now pursuing education is just automatic and “more and more” complete the Leaving Certificate. However, as someone working closely with Travellers for decades, she believes there is still discrimination.
“They are followed around in supermarkets, maybe not allowed into mainstream hairdressers. There is still this thing about Travellers booking a wedding. That all affects adults more than children. Children would be aware of it but depending on the schools they attend, they have a lot of people who really look out for them as well.”
Branley says she is “constantly surprised” by the children who create Kids Own publications, which feature art as well as text.
There is such power in children seeing themselves reflected positively in the books and materials they encounter, and that this representation is by other children, and not adults, is even more important
— Creative director Ciara Gallagher
She noted that in one book entitled I Hope You Grow, which featured children living in temporary accommodation, the word “homeless” was never used by them and their attitude seemed to be “you are with your family so it is not the worst disaster”. One child wrote that they were children experiencing difficulty “and we are writing this book so that other children who are in the same difficulty won’t feel so alone”.
Branley said in another project for children in foster care, pseudonyms were used so they could say what they wished.
“That was very powerful. One of the girls wrote: ‘Well, you can’t be passed around like a parcel your whole life’”.
Another contributor urged her peers to “watch out for social workers. They are all over 40 and they speak to you with this really weird voice”, which Branley interpreted as her way of saying some professionals can sound patronising. “It’s the ‘How are we today?’ kind of thing”, said the writer.
Researchers Dr Susan McDonnell and Dr Tamsin Cavaliero, both lecturers at ATU Sligo who interviewed the Cork-based Roma and Traveller children, said a handful of them had seen references to Traveller life and culture in books “but even those were outdated and related to their parents or grandparents’ lives”.
“The Roma children said they had never seen Roma life or culture portrayed at all,” said Dr McDonnell.
Dr Cavaliero said that with “misrepresentation and stereotyping very common in the media”, the children were getting “an opportunity for representation that they don’t get very often”.
Both researchers said the children believed there was a very low expectation of them in schools and they hoped being co-authors of a book would change that.
[ The Irish Times view on Traveller child rights: Shocking failuresOpens in new window ]
Gallagher said Kids Own is now focused on trying to get their publications into classrooms all around the country.
“There is such power in children seeing themselves reflected positively in the books and materials they encounter, and that this representation is by other children, and not adults, is even more important”, she said,.
The Kids Own CEO said: “It goes without saying that adults can learn a lot from these books too.”
