​

Translated from the Hungarian by Hayley Anderson

English editing on Eszter Tarsoly's translation seminars by Joe Bates, Richard Hayward, Mihály Köntös, Sára Szakál, and Simon Watson

This text was written collaboratively by three members of the Tiszavasvári Young Roma Women’s Club, with whom our research team has a regular and long-term collaboration which includes mentoring sessions, writing and photography projects, as well as distributing the periodical Duj Dzséne – Two Together in the Roma neighbourhood. The Roma Women’s Club, was established in 2022 with guidance by Erika Lévai Kerekesné, the lead local researcher on our team, and former headteacher of Magiszter Primary School where Romani- Hungarian bilingual pupils study. The three authors of the text brought one of their photos to one of our workshops. The photo is copied below to illustrate their text. The three authors then worked collaboratively with support from Mihály Köntös and Eszter Tarsoly to write the text below. They completed their primary-school education in Magiszter Primary School where our translanguaging project took place. At the time of writing they were either about to start their secondary training in a vocational college or they were in the second or third year of their training.

​This image is quiet, dark, and comforting. In it there is beauty. It is vague, but colourful with blue, a whitish yellow, black, and gold. It is dark, but there is still light within it. Our lives are like this too. At the bottom, it is like water, as if the sun is reflecting onto the sea. It is as if an island is there too. That light helps to guide us.

The angel, who can be seen in the picture, seems to be sitting or waiting for something. As if it is sad, its head droops. This angel waits for our dreams to come true. It reassures us. But the reason the angel is sad is because so many people have not achieved their purpose, never obtaining a diploma in anything. Suddenly, it becomes bright. Just as the angel appears, there is a very tiny speck of black. There is good in every bad thing. But when everything suddenly brightens, the bad goes away, a light shines, and a pathway opens. For

example, when somebody dies. We wait for the good, the good, the good, and at some point, good will always come. The Roma neighbourhood is not so beautiful, and yet it still has a certain beauty.
At first when we start school, it is frightening. But there is a light that represents our future. Initially, we thought it was impossible to study to be a social worker because it was far away and we would have had to walk a lot, mainly in the heat. So, for this reason, we chose a different profession. We are now studying for a diploma in tailoring and childminding. Nothing is impossible and we have proved it. The light, for us, represents this. We have faith in our angel in the sky. Our angel assures us that we will achieve our dreams.