oral stories project
From Plantation to Pollok from Kosovo to Kennishead
After the success of Buffalo Horns and Village Stories, we’re getting a taste for publishing books. Our latest project, From Kosovo to Kennishead, will culminate with a new book recording and celebrating the cultural diversity of the Kennishead area of Pollok. Most of the material will come from interviews with local people, either host community or folk who have arrived here as asylum seekers.
A particularly interesting aspect of this project is that the interviews will be conducted by pupils from our local Secondary Schools. Ross Hall pupils are going to interview asylum seekers and St Paul’s pupils who have come from other countries will be interviewing local residents, particularly those who have lived in the area since the houses were first built.
We know it’s going to be a fruitful exchange. Older residents are opening their treasure chests of stories of the old tenement days in the Gorbals and Govan, the streets, characters and community life of the thirties, forties and fifties, and of the early days in Pollok. People from countries such as, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Congo, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka will have much to tell about their own early lives in communities where buildings and trades and customs were a lot different from old Glasgow. The contrasts will be interesting.
Another ingredient will be a linguistic exchange: since interviewee and interviewer will have different first languages, we’re asking them to learn a few phrases of the new tongue. For some people, this will mean picking up a bit of the old Glasgow dialect! Well, why not? There are as many treasures there as in other areas of tenement history!
All the interviewees will be asked to reflect about life in Pollok here and now, as well as their first impressions when they were new arrivals. We want to get a picture of the community as it was and as it is, good and bad.
For the young people involved, it should be a very valuable educational experience: as well as learning how to conduct and record interviews, they’ll find out a lot about life in the past and in other countries. For the adults, it will be a chance to communicate their knowledge and experience and to interact with the younger generation.
It is a difficult time for asylum seekers in our community. Government policy makes it almost impossible for some claimants to prove their case. As a result, many families, having escaped from danger in their own countries, now find themselves threatened with deportation after, in some cases, having been resident here for more than four years. So, we are very grateful that, with such worries on their shoulders, they are still willing to take part in this community project. We have no doubt that they have enriched the community and hope that they will continue to do so for years to come.
For further details contact Liam
Latest update on this project
Kabul, Linthouse, Mbakang, Priesthill, Mannar, Househillwood, Kinshasa, Plantation, Bauma Station, Gorbals: far away towns and villages, corners of an old city, starting points for life journeys that led to the same Glasgow community. Conversations between teenagers and ten people in Pollok, Glasgow (five born Glaswegians, five new Glaswegians) about origins, neighbourhoods, war, immigration, integration, beliefs, hopes, fears.
The book ' Doors Open' the culmination of this project is now available to purchase.
For further details contact Margaret or Liam
The
original Plantation to Pollok project
has now been completed with the publication of Doors Open, the creation of a website (www.doorsopen.org.uk)
which gives background about the book, extracts, commentary, information
and links with a wide range of organisations, and,
most recently, the launch of a short DVD which, as well as giving samples of the
interviews and associated community activities, traces the lead up to the
project through previous Village work with asylum seekers.
Liam
Stewart will now be using these materials as part of an educational and
awareness-raising programme in secondary schools.
He will offer sessions on aspects of the project, e.g. Asylum, Community
Integration, Racism, Reminiscence, with relevance for several school subjects
and relating to the wider concept of Global Citizenship.
The project funders are: