Clare Traveller Community Development Project will host a local Traveller Mental Health Day tomorrow in Ennis. The theme of this event is ‘Traveller Road to Hope and Change’ and the aim is to remember all those who have been lost to suicide. As part of the event, a tree of hope will be planted to raise awareness of the mental health crisis within the Traveller Community. People are asked to attend in solidarity at St Peter and Paul Cathedral on Thursday, October 10, 3.30pm.
“Hope is what you get when you have a future, when you can see a future and you can see yourself reaching it – having a purpose and being active in achieving your own potential. Despair is what you get when you don’t have a future, when that has been taken from you and when you can’t see any purpose or role for yourself in achieving in your own potential,” said Bridget Casey, Coordinator, Clare Traveller CDP.
“So, if you want to create despair, it’s easy enough. You just have to take away a person’s reason for living. Remove their reason for living. Remove their identity and their own sense of purpose. Take away their hope.
“This I what is being done to people in my own Traveller community, to my own family day after day, year after year, generation after generation. Our children are reminded daily of their own third class citizenship – in their schools, in shops, in social media. We know too well what despair is. We are forced to live it.
“But we have not got to the stage where we know who to blame. Even the strongest person begins to believe what they are being told and reaches the despair that self-blame brings”.
Martin McDonagh, Men’s Development Worker, Clare Traveller CDP says “So it’s very straightforward to create despair. It’s a lot harder to create hope. How do you help someone to believe in their own worth? In their own future? How can you create a vision for the future that we can all believe in and see our own positive part in that future? I firmly believe that this is the same struggle and the settled community as it is in our own Traveller community.
“We have a bigger mountain to climb when we are trying to create a vision that people can believe in and work towards. We have a harder day-by-day struggle to explain the discrimination, degradation and abuse we have to deal with; a bigger job explaining that this is not our
fault; and a much greater time spent in graveyards burying our own people who have died through
suicide.”
Maja Syncerz, Development Worker, Clare Traveller CDP continues “But I firmly believe that we all face the same challenge. We need to create a shared vision based on hope. We need to give everyone the space to understand that there is a future, that each and every one of us are entitled to play a full part in working towards that future. That this is not all our own fault. And that we support each other in these efforts – that we afford each other the respect to which we are all entitled, regardless of our creed, our culture, our age or our gender.”
Andrew Hamilton is a journalist, investigative reporter and blogger who has been working in the media in Ireland for the past 20 years. His areas of special interest include the environment, mental health and politics.