INTRODUCTION

Education is important for Gypsy/Travellers just as much as it is for everyone else. Going to school can be difficult because of bullying and racism. One young woman told her story:

‘When I went to high school I didn’t have a school uniform, because my mum and dad didn’t want me to have one. My classmates would just pick on us because they said we couldn’t afford the uniform and we were just poor black Gypsies, and the teachers would hear them saying it. There was many a time I went to the teachers to tell them but they wouldn’t do anything about it. It got too much, my mum wanted me to go to school but my dad didn’t so I left. I told them we were moving to Ireland.
I would have liked to have stayed on, but the other pupils comments made me feel that I wasn’t welcome, where really we’re all the same.’

Chantelle 19