The RESPECT Project (Racialised Experiences Project: Education, Children & Trust) has been funded by both UKRI and UWE, Bristol, and responds to calls to understand children’s racialised experiences and the impact this has on their mental health and wellbeing. Working with children, we co-produced a children’s picture book called If Racism Vanished for a Day… Available in hard copy and free e-book, the book focusses on themes from the original research participants, with each page imagining how they might feel if racism was not negatively affecting their lives.
Earlier this year we worked with AdBlock Bristol to install a billboard created from one of the pages from the book. Adblock’s mission is to reduce city dwellers’ exposure to advertising in public spaces by replacing them with images that speak about solidarity, community and connection. The RESPECT billboard invited passers-by to envisage a future without racism, and amplified children’s voices in a space where they are rarely heard. The billboard was on display in a busy inner city area for three months, and in that time a number of schools across the south west undertook anti-racism lessons in response to it.
The book has been distributed to libraries in Bristol and is being used in more than 1000 schools across the UK, as well as in teacher education programmes, social work and police constable training. It is also available through a variety of mental health support agencies including Barnardo’s.
In the spirit of amplifying children’s experiences to a range of people, the team are currently working with the Avon and Somerset Police to inform their training programme, as well as with multi academy trusts to explore how the racialised experiences of primary children (9-11 years) can inform secondary educational practice and learning.
Luci Gorell Barnes – Socially engaged artist, illustrator and doctoral researcher
https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/Luci2Gorellbarnes
RESPECT: https://respectprojectbristol.org/
To read the children’s book online: https://issuu.com/uwebristol/docs/if_racism_vanished_for_a_day
Teacher guide: https://respectprojectbristol.org/?page_id=187
‘Where do you feel it most?’ Using body mapping to explore the lived experiences of racism with 10- and 11-year-olds’: British Educational Research Journal: Vol 50, No 3 (wiley.com)
Contact: Verity6.Jones@uwe.ac.uk
You may also be interested in this related blog – If Racism Vanished for a Day…’: An illustrated book based on a study of children’s lived experiences of racism
