A presentation by the Waterford Traveller Community Health Project to the ICTU/SIPTU HETAC Equality Module students on Monday 26th May 2014 was part of the programme by tutor Margaret de Courcey of developing the awareness and understanding of course students to the traveller ethnicity. “As one of the nine grounds under the Equality legislation we all too often pay lip service to this ground in favour of developing more detailed discussions on other areas like gender, age, disability etc. I felt the opportunity to explore in more detail this areas would enhance our awareness on the serious issues that confront the traveller community”
The contributors on the night from the Waterford Traveller Community Health Project were Emma Maguire Project Manager and Nan O’Reilly Development worker and herself a traveller.
The session started lively with students being asked to line up against a series of photographs where they were given a description of a person and asked to link the statement to the picture.
“As expected because of our stereotypical expectations based on sight and maybe prejudices the vast majority of us were incorrect in our linking of the person and the description” Margaret continued. This exercise set an excellent backdrop to the slide presentation of the historical and current issues facing travellers from the socio-economic issues to health and mental health issues in particular. The session also sought to expose the myths from realities about the community. It concluded with the positive achievements of a number of members of the traveller community, not often spoken about, who include a barrister, psychotherapist, PhD graduate and political writer to name but a few. As with all such sessions the discussion interaction was all to brief and rolled well over the time allocation.
Margaret summed up her approach for the course initiative by saying “What I have introduced into this module are individual contributors who can articulate their equality ground from their own personal experience whether they are transgender, traveller, disabled. This gives the students the opportunity to hear at first hand their life experience of what it’s like to “walk in their shoes” While I provide the more formal training requirements the guest speakers play a vital role in bringing their issues out to the class for more detailed discussion. Not only do I believe it’s a valuable input to the course it’s been warmly welcomed by the students in their assessment”
Finally Margaret wants to invite shop-stewards and union activists from the south east to join this HETAC training course which will continue in September. This is a two year programme based on six modules. Each module is taught over a ten week period, with an end of module assessment. Each module is a standalone subject but six modules are required to complete the qualification. Students can opt in and out of modules as suits either their work or personal requirements. Qualification can be achieved over a longer period.
For further details please contact Margaret de Courcey, on 0876784725 or mdecourcey@siptu.ie this course is also open to all other ICTU union activists in the south east. All are welcome.
