Hearing the quieter voices
The Verbal Arts Centre’s James Kerr has the ambition of reaching out to everyone who wants their voice to be heard in Northern Ireland – not just in the city of Derry.
The Verbal Arts Centre in Derry is located at the city’s famous walls, sitting at an interface area between the Fountain and the Bogside.
However, according to James Kerr, the centre isn’t determined by space. The idea of verbal arts is “to go where the people are.” It’s about “giving everyone the opportunity to tell their story” whether written or spoken.
The centre’s Executive Director says: “The phrase we use is: ‘Tell your story’ which is about giving everyone the means and opportunity to tell their story with a focus on those people who are most at the margins, who are most vulnerable. These voices aren’t normally heard.”
He uses a quote from Man Booker Prize winner Suzanna Arundhati Roy to explain: “There is really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There is only the deliberately silenced and the preferably unheard.”
He remarks: “It’s the ‘preferably unheard’ we work with – from street drinkers, to single mothers, to victims of abuse.”
During the City of Culture year in 2013, Kerr says he began to think about what could be done that would be transformational. “If people can’t come in here – for mobility reasons, for access reasons, for timing reasons – why can’t I go to them? How can I get people access to these materials?”
He decided to look at options for outreach programmes which is how the ‘Reading Rooms’ came about – a shared reading project travelling to different community centres, youth groups, care homes and jails. A person travels to the group’s location and reads a story, discussing it with the group as they go through the text.
The educational charity now has its own wheels and from July, a ‘Reading Rooms’ bus will be going out and about: “There will be a reading room near most people by the end of the year.”
The other areas of the centre’s work are digital storytelling, publishing, events, and an oral history and archive.
Looking to the future generations, a school of journalism has been established for which there is “huge demand.” It offers GCSE and A-level journalism, in conjunction with the Foyle Learning Community. Students are able to develop their interviewing and writing skills as well as learning practical skills such as radio and video editing. “I’m very proud of that because we do it on a collaborative learning model which means the schools come together,” Kerr reflects. “We don’t go into schools – we bring them to locations. It’s a model of learning.”
