Bartamaha (Dublin):-“TODAY I did not go to school. The boys from my class stopped me on my way home and they were rude to me,” says one of the letters in Andrej’s suitcase.
Andrej is 16 years old. He arrived in Ireland 4½ years ago with his mother, who travelled to Dublin to work and make a better life for her family.
Their family’s story is one of 14 told through the eyes of children in a new art exhibition celebrating multicultural Ireland at the Dublin Civic Offices, Wood Quay.
Suitcase Stories includes artwork from children from Nigeria, Eritrea, Cameroon, South Africa and Slovakia.
Each child was asked to create a suitcase, where the inside represents the country they come from and the outside illustrates their new life in Ireland.
“My suitcase has pictures of Slovakia inside and 16 letters that I wrote to my granny when I arrived here.
“They explain some of the difficulties I encountered during the first two years,” says Andrej, who arrived on Valentine’s Day, 2006.
It was not love at first sight, however, when he arrived in Ireland because Andrej couldn’t speak any English and was bullied in the first school he attended, he says.
One of the letters to his grandmother explains how he had to move schools due to bullying.
Another describes how his mother was told she would lose her job if she took a holiday with her children and travelled to Slovakia.
“It is not as easy as everyone thinks to move countries,” says Andrej, who has now settled into life in Ireland much better and is doing well at his new school.
“My ambition is to go to Stanford University in the US and then work at Google’s Zurich research centre,” he says.
Some of the childrens’ suitcases reflect the huge problems in their home countries.
Yasmin, a 13-year-old born in Ireland to Somali parents, has toy soldiers and broken glass inside her case to represent the war in her country.
“I’ve never been to Somalia but I think I’m going to go next year. We can’t visit the capital Moghadishu because of the fighting,” she says.
“My parents make sure to keep Somali traditions in the house. We eat Somali food, which is much better than the bland Irish food. I speak Somali at home but can also speak English and Irish.”
“I think the Irish education system is really good.
“I think I will get a good job because of that,” says Yasmin, who is wearing a beautifully coloured headscarf.
The exhibition is a collaborative project between Unicef Ireland and Dublin City Council.
It runs until October 8th.
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Source:-Irish Times.
