Hilary Fannin: Will you help send these Irish children back to school?

My younger son was supposed to do his Leaving Certificate in June, but for obvious reasons he didn’t. This will be the first September in donkeys’ years that I haven’t practically had to remortgage to afford a shiny new tranche of schoolbooks.

Last year The Irish Times reported on a survey by the Irish League of Credit Unions on the cost of sending a child back to school. At primary level, extracurricular activities, uniforms, clothing and books added up to more than €400 a child. At second level the figure rose to more than €600, and that didn’t include iPads, shoes, sports equipment, lunches, stationery or a few quid for the chipper on a wet Friday. A third of the people surveyed reported being “forced to deny their children certain school items”.

It’s short-sighted and irresponsible to allow any family in the State to struggle to give their child an education. I feel for every anxious parent queuing up this summer for school ties and mathematical instruments, for grey gaberdine trousers and acceptable schoolbags.

Finally, schools are set to reopen, which will be a huge relief to many children living in direct provision, for whom school is a sanctuary, a place where, for a time, they can be just like everyone else

For families living in direct provision, including an estimated 1,700 school-age children, this time of year brings an avalanche of stress. Many of those children have already experienced intense educational disadvantage during lockdown, living in cramped conditions with limited access to wifi. Without iPads or other tablets, printers or photocopiers, some had to stand around in reception areas, attempting to download schoolwork on to their parents’ phones. Unable to upload worksheets, scan in homework or Zoom into tutorials, they have suffered an inestimable cost to their education.

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Now, finally, schools are set to reopen, which will be a huge relief to many children living in direct provision, for whom school is a sanctuary, a place where, for a time, they can be just like everyone else.

I don’t know if you remember the start of term on a dry September morning, walking to the bus stop, your room-to-grow shoes slipping up and down on your heels. I don’t know if you remember how important it was not to stand out because of the contents of your lunchbox or pencil case. I don’t know if you remember how much it mattered to be the same.

Recently, I was talking to Donnah Vuma, a founder of Every Child Is Your Child, a community group from Limerick with the goal of raising funds for parents living in direct provision. Donnah, who spent more than five years in direct provision with her children, described the despair of mothers trying to stretch out the €28.60 weekly allowance for a child and the annual back-to-school allowance of €275, when a uniform skirt in a specialist shop retails for more that €50 and a single textbook can cost more than your weekly living allowance. Dignity is difficult to hold on to when you can't afford to buy your child a Pritt Stick.

The children who were bussed to school, used to ask the driver to stop half a mile from the gate, so they could maintain their anonymity by walking the rest of the way

Donnah told me how, when she was unable to afford a workbook for her young son, the teacher tried to help by encouraging another child to share their book and by photocopying worksheets. But after a while her son stopped wanting to go to school, which he had loved, because he was different, the only one without the book.

And then there were the rejected cling-film-wrapped Nutella sandwiches, provided daily by the centre to take to school for lunch. That unchanging sandwich became emblematic of direct provision, a visible mark of difference. But how do you make your child a healthy packed lunch without so much as access to a breadboard?

The children in the Limerick centre that Donnah lived in, who were bussed daily to school, used to ask the driver to stop half a mile from the gate so that they could maintain their anonymity by walking the rest of the way. Look at me, their rejected lunchboxes said; look at me, the walk to school said.

Look. We are not different, we are one.

Every Child Is Your Child is raising funds to help buy textbooks, tablets, laptops, wifi and data. You can donate via PayPal or by post or drop-off to either Doras (c/o ECIYC, Central Buildings, 51 O'Connell Street, Limerick, V94 HPH9) or Irish Refugee Council (c/o ECIYC, 37 Killarney Street, Mountjoy, Dublin 1, D01 NX74)