Children of the world share stories in words and pictures

"YOU can draw in every single country, and you can sing and you can jump," says William, eight, from Sweden, now living in Cambridge.

"When you miss someone, it's like they're dead because you don't think you're gonna meet them again. I really miss my family," says Sara, 10, from Afghanistan, now living in Manchester.

"In Israel they used to shout a lot. It's quieter here," says Guy, 10, now living in Truro. Caroline Irby has heard the most amazing things out of the mouths of babes.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The photographer's latest exhibition coincides with the publication of a beautiful and poignant book called A Child From Everywhere.

For the book, Irby was set the task of finding, photographing and hearing the stories of children now living in the UK who had come from every country in the world. "Using the UN definition of a child and the 192 countries the UN recognises was my starting point," says Irby. "The plan was to find a child from every one of the countries of the world now living in the UK."

So she set out to find the children in a manner that, Irby readily admits, was haphazard. "I had no plan. I just started asking friends and managed to get a few that way," she says, paying tribute to the multi-cultural nature of Britain today.

Irby soon realised the magnitude of the project and set about creating a plan.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She visited schools, spoke to foreign embassies, local councils. She began collecting stories and photographs of children and the project began to grow.

It began as an idea presented to Irby, who works as a freelance photographer for national newspapers, by the Guardian. A Channel Four producer saw the article and approached Irby to talk about the possibility of a documentary. The film was to chart Irby's journey, but evolved to become the recordings Irby made when she met the children. Irby says: "After the documentary I was approached by Black Dog publishing and now it has become a book."

The project has come to mean a great deal to Irby.

"Early on a few of the children said the thing they like about living in the UK is that there are people from all over the world here," says Irby. "Damian was a little boy from Malta who said that was his favourite thing about being in Britain." Damian, 13, now lives in Cardiff.

In Irby's book he says: "I don't like to stay with one type of people, that's why I have lots of friends which are different races."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The book has pictures of 185 children, accompanied by the children talking about their lives and experiences. Irby says: "The book is also about immigration and about celebrating the fact that people from all over the world make-up contemporary Britain."

When we speak Irby is at the V&A Museum of Childhood in London, where an exhibition of some of the photographs from the book are on display. I struggle to hear her over the din of schoolchildren all around, but Irby is not put off by this.

"There is something magical about seeing children interact with the photographs, reading the stories and seeing how they relate to them."

The project took Irby around the country and one of the most poignant stories she found was Kwame, a 16-year-old boy from Ghana, living in Leeds at the time. "He was such a character. We did our interview at his school and then we walked around the school to find somewhere to photograph him and he was literally bouncing off the walls, flirting with all the girls, high-fiving all the boys.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"He talked really passionately about how he wanted to be a doctor and go back to Ghana to help people there."

Next to his image he says: "I want Ghana to improve. I want Ghana to have the best freedom and the best school, the best opportunities so we could be the same as here. I want it to be a developed country as well."

Shortly after his interview, Kwame contracted meningitis and died.

Irby also found some deeply uplifting stories on her journey. "It was a project from heaven. I love children and am fascinated by their stories. They instinctively do what creative people are always trying to do, which is to look at the world anew. To meet these children, many

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

of who had been through traumatic events and see them with optimism at being in this country – it was an enormous privilege."

A Child From Everywhere: Photographs and interviews of children from 185 countries living in the UK, Black Dog Publishing, 14.95.

Related topics: