Fulbright Student Project Publishes Roma Folk Tales
Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Susanne Liaw ’15 and four of her students at the Debrecen-based Wáli István Residential College researched, edited, translated and published a booklet called “Roma Folk Tales”. Children from the Igazgyöngy Foundation for talented children provided dozens of vibrant illustrations, many of which were used on the book’s cover and to supplement each story.
The authors wrote as follows, describing the purpose of their project: “To break (these) stereotypes, we have collected several gypsy folktales to show a different side of the story… All of these stories show how smart and optimistic the Roma people are… These folk tales are an important part of our culture… We mustn’t let these tales vanish.”
Students at Wáli István studied English, learned about American culture, motivated talented kids to illustrate their folk tales, and in the end produced a series of illustrations, not all of which could appear in the booklet. Susanne and her students had rediscover aspects of Roma culture that were lost in living oral tradition, and this is a significant contribution to the students’ exploration of their own heritage.
Fulbright Hungary is proud of its Roma English Teaching Assistant project, and hopes to expand and continue collaboration with the Roma Residential Colleges and other foundations throughout Hungary in upcoming academic years.
To view the booklet, see issuu.com/fulbrighthungary/docs/roma_folk_tales
To download the booklet, see www.fulbright.hu/doc/Roma_Folk_Tales.pdf
