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Resources > Global Issues > UK Travellers and... > Reports from Dale... > Education and Wel...

Education and Welfare of Children at Dale Farm

Education and Welfare of Children at Dale Farm
October 27, 2008
Grattan Puxon


I was a founder member of the Itinerant Action Group in Ireland in 1962 and helped to build and run the first and second Saint Christopher’s School, at Ballyfermot, which catered for the children of 70 families at the Cherry Orchard Settlement, until the first official caravan park was provided by Dublin Corporation. In 1966, I helped found the Gypsy Council, which successfully campaigned for Eric Lubbock’s private members’ Caravan Sites Act. In 1971, I was elected at the 1st World Romani Congress as general-secretary of the International Romani Union, and served until 1981.

I co-authored Destiny of Europe’s Gypsies, now the standard work on the persecution of Roma by the Nazis, and recently had published my first novel Freeborn Traveller. I have been involved with the Dale Farm Community for seven years, serving as vice-chair of the Traveller Community Project, initiated by Cathy Abbott, health care director at Wickford,

and now as secretary of the unregistered Dale Farm Housing Association. The DFHA has sought to set up an alternative for the community at Pitsea, on a site recommended by John Prescott while Deputy Prime Minister.

Many of the people at Dale Farm are grandchildren and great grandchildren, great nephews and nieces, of the families I was working with, and lived with, in Ireland 45 years ago.

1. The children of the Dale Farm community, of which there are over 150, face a grim future if Basildon District Council is permitted to carry out its huge direct action operation aimed at clearing out 132 chalets, mobile-homes and caravans (as counted in January 2008).

2. A warning of the traumatic impact of this eviction has been given by the Basildon, Billericay and Wickford Primary Care Trust.

3. While opposition to the decision has been expressed by the Basildon Labour and Liberal Democrat groups, who have described it as disproportionate and racially tainted, and by clergy, including the bishops of Brentwood and Chelmsford.

4. A proportion of the children have already experienced much dislocation in their lives, including eviction from other unauthorised caravan parks and forced move-ons by the police under s62 of the Criminal Justice Act, which in 1996 effectively outlawed the Travelling way of life.

5. Dale Farm has offered a refuge to these youngsters and about half have benefited during the past seven years from attendance at local primary schools, particularly Crays Hill Primary School.

6. This school, after the regrettable withdrawal of pupils by Crays Hill parents, has a pupil body comprised almost entirely of Dale Farm children. Much has been done to improve the school which has received a high Ofsted rating and currently has over 80 children on its register.

7. However, on completing primary school few children have gone on to enter secondary-schools. Of some dozen reaching secondary-school age this year, none are now in school. Those who have attempted to attend have invariably met with racist taunts and bullying. Parents’ concern about the drug and knife culture in schools has added to difficulties in placing children.

8. As a result, some parents have opted for home education (in the case of ten children this school year) and others have been reported for the non-attendance of children. At the present time some 50 children of secondary school age are receiving no schooling from the local education authority.

9. In an attempt to improve this situation, I asked for a meeting with members of the Essex Traveller Education Service. Three such meetings have taken place, at Crays Hill Primary School and at Dale Farm, attended by myself, Richard Sheridan, resident and president of the Gypsy Council (who has two children at the Crays Hill school). The TES team has been led by its director Jackie Nesbitt.

10. In these meetings, we have explored all the possibilities for providing education for the secondary-school aged children at Dale Farm. I learnt that those opting for home education were in fact receiving no educational at all. Others had been reported for non-attendance but no action taken. I understood from TES, and from Jackie Nesbitt in particular, that the TES was against any on-site provision and that they took the view children should be in local secondary schools. Yet it was clear that this had not been achieved.

11. The only bright spot was the possibility that some children could benefit from the E-lamp programme, which involves working at home on computers with some tutorial assistance. However, I was told that only five E-lamp places were available in the whole of Essex.

12. Subsequently, one girl, aged 13, at Dale Farm has been recommended for this scheme. The result is still awaited.

13. In response to this situation, I was advised to approach Prof Stephen Heppell, director of NotSchool, who has devised special education programmes for children in several countries. He has written a separate statement about this work and his plans for Dale Farm children and adults. I also talked with Sangita Mitra, community development worker at Essex Racial Equality Council, who informed me that grants were available for Travellers for youth activities and she recommended that I look into this, as so far the funding offer appeared never to have been taken up.

14. Sangita Mitra talked with youth at Dale Farm about what activities they would like, and put forward a proposal for funding of the Dale Farm Housing Association. Essex County Council then made a grant of just under 12,000 pounds, some 8,000 of which was for a log cabin to be used as a community centre, and the rest for computers and sports equipment.

15. The log cabin was supplied and erected by Alpha Garden Centre, London Road, Wickford. When visited by Sagita Mitra and myself, the Garden Centre staff assured us the structure did not need planning permission.

16. It was erected by the company at the end of April and officially opened by Lord Avebury as the Saint Christopher Centre on 3 May. It was blessed by Father John Glynn, parish priest at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, London Road, Wickford, for use as a place of prayer.

17. The computers were purchased on 6 May and the same day Cllr Candy Sheridan (North Norfolk) and Rachel Knight (co-ordinator of the Gypsy History Month) held a session with children, who were encouraged to enter a national painting competition in connection with the first Gypsy History Month.

18. On 9 May, Mr Justice Collins issued his ruling in the Judicial Review of Basildon’s decision to use direct action and, on the same morning, the Churches Network for Gypsies and Travellers issued an appeal to Basildon not to proceed with the eviction. The Bishop of Chelmsford and the Bishop of Brentwood headed this appeal and visited the Saint Christopher Centre.

19. The Centre continued to be used for IT work, with James Dasinger, an intern sent to Dale Farm by the Advocacy Project, Washington, providing tuition. He worked with children in the Centre for some weeks before returning to the United States.

20. The Gypsy Council met in the Centre on 10 June when it was agreed by myself and other members that Katie Goldsmith would forward the activities of the GC Youth Division by helping to form a youth club at Dale Farm, along the lines of a similar organization in Canterbury, Kent.

21. Prof Stephen Heppell, of Anglia Ruskin University, came to my home in Colchester on 16 June and outlined to me what kind of project he intended to develop for children and adults at Dale Farm. These were discussed next day at a meeting at Crays Hill Primary School with Jackie Nesbitt, Sally Farmer and Andrew Scott, of Essex Traveller Education Service.

22. A further meeting took place at Dale Farm between Sally Palmer and Cllr Candy Sheridan and myself on 15 June, with Sean Risdale of CEHR attending. I said we, that is the DFHA and the GC, were trying to develop further courses at the Centre. Candy Sheridan said she was putting forward a proposal for a design and clothes making Course.

23. The Children’s Legal Centre held a Drop-In session in the Saint Christopher Centre, on 29 July, which I attended, during which 15 cases involving breaches of the Data Protection Act by BDC were opened with adults whose children had been named in a council agenda and on the BDC website, which had listed details including ailments and medical and educational background.

 In addition, on the suggestion of solicitor Alison Fiddy, the possibility was explored of bringing a test case involving a boy of about 12 who shows signs of being school phobic.

24. On 12 August, Katie Goldsmith and Angie Jones, of the GC Youth Division, along with Blue Jones, Kent member of the UK Youth Parliament, came to help conduct the foundation meeting of the Dale Farm Chaveys Youth Club. About 30 members signed up this first day and a committee was elected. A youth leadership training course was planned.

My view is that no youth club in the Basildon area can offer what is being provided at the Saint Christopher Centre, as a glance at the walls shows any visitor that here alone Gypsy and Traveller culture and history have first place, and through the internet young people are linked with Roma in other countries.

25. Sallyanne Thallon, of the ECC, and Clive Marsden, of Essex Racial Equality Council, met me at Dale Farm on 2 September when Thallon produced a 1996 map of the authorised area of Dale Farm which included two plots designated for development as play area in the original plans. She expressed the hope that the Saint Christopher Centre, which was now the subject of an enforcement notice on plot owner Martina McCarthy, could be moved to one of these legal sites. We three visited these yards only to find that they are now licensed for residential use and occupied. We talked with several residents but no-one was willing to have the Centre in their yard due to the responsibility involved and the possible inconvenience of having youth activities on their doorstep.

26. It will clearly be impossible to provide anything like the facilities available through the Saint Christopher Centre if young people, with their families, are forced to leave Dale Farm and camp on a roadside, or car park, or farmer’s field.

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