Reflections written by artist Cat Boot
Children are short! They spent much of the walk looking at the floor, rather than up to where the vista opens out and they can see more of their surroundings. Even when I pointed out the hills in the distance when we were at the park, many children couldn’t see beyond them, because they looked at the zip line in the foreground.
We walked past a shrine that members of the community had created for a local young person who had been killed. Some of the parents didn’t go near. How do they explain death to their children. Only one of the children knew what it was.
The walk developed connections between some of the parents.
One of the children knew the owner of the shop we went in, and it felt that there was a real sense of community and of the children being seen and heard and developing connection when we went in there.
A, who is registered blind, coped really well. He doesn’t normally walk very much and left the visit early as he was tired. He seemed to enjoy the experience, commenting on what he could see and hear. Staff felt that A can see more than perhaps they’ve been led to believe. He was tapping his stick against the parked cars (he knew they were there), and said he could see a black car.
P was very quiet at the start but displayed clear pride and enjoyment in arriving at her house and showing it to the others. This was a really nice moment for P.
A is following the narrative of Mo much more closely than any of the other children. She has made the connections between Mo’s map and the activities we are doing. She said “we are going to get back to nursery using Mo’s map”. At the end of the session she told me that I don’t have a home so they are going to build me one. This will be the start of our next session together. She is also has a developing sense of agency and confidence. Here parents allowed her to choose the route we took to their house. She also said “all of the kids who have been on the walk are brave. I am brave of spiders”.
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