Judy McMenamin has only good memories of her first day at secondary school. It was the second day that everything started to go wrong, because by then her classmates had learned she was a traveller. Now aged 27 and a mother of three young children, she recalls the names she was called, and says it must have been the parents of her fellow pupils who told them she was a traveller. "It hurt me a lot. They just tried to lower you down. It happened every day I went to school," she says.

She left at the end of first year, aged 13, and is still suffering the consequences. Talking to her, you would never realise she has difficulty reading and writing. She appears confident and relaxed and wears a warm, open smile under brown, bobbed hair. But she screws up her face at some of the longer words on a poster over her head, and there is real helplessness when she explains she is unable to help her young son with his homework.

"His teachers said he was falling behind at reading and writing, and the way it felt to me was that they were blaming me for not helping him," she says.

Judy's is just one story of many told by a group of women sitting around the room, all participants on the Donegal Travellers' Project in Letterkenny. In a workshop on the same premises, a group of traveller men is taking part in an arts and recycling project, which it is hoped will develop into a co-operative enterprise.

Since it was established in 1996, the project has grown rapidly. There are now about 40 people in full-time training, with the bulk of the funding coming from the International Fund for Ireland and Europe.

After completing a range of taster classes, the women's group has chosen to focus on health, with the aim of working as community health visitors with other travellers. A number of women are also training for recognised qualifications in childcare. Literacy classes are available for those who need them. Siobhan McLaughlin, the project leader, stresses that this scheme differs from others in that it aims to involve travellers in decision-making at all levels. "We want to bring about a better quality of life for travellers and to see travellers take on leadership roles in their own communities and in decision-making bodies in the county," she says.

The project also aims to influence policy, both locally and nationally, and to help improve relations between travellers and the settled community.

It takes a community development approach and is run on the basis of a partnership between travellers and settled people. A 12-person steering committee reflects this partnership and also has representatives of statutory agencies such as the North Western Health Board and Donegal County Council. There are a number of travellers on the staff, some of whom started as trainees. Chrissie McGinley, who has been involved in the project from the beginning, says that initially it wasn't easy convincing women to take part, but that now they have "a different way of living altogether". They feel the project belongs to them, she says. Having a creche on the premises was an important factor in attracting women.

Initially the project focused on developing women's capacity to articulate their needs and improve their self-confidence. The women can recount examples of discrimination. At school, a settled child who misbehaved was "punished" by being made to sit beside a traveller. They remember being given chores such as cleaning toilets and picking up papers in the yard when other children stayed in class.

They have also had bad experiences with the health services; they were made to feel like second-class citizens and were often kept apart from settled women when they went to hospital to have their babies.

Most would never have gone to doctors for check-ups or basic preventative health care. The statistics speak for themselves - life expectancy for travellers is still some 10 years below that of settled people. By choosing to focus on health, the women hope to be able to help others in their community. Their training as community health visitors is based on a model developed by the Pavee Point Travellers' centre in Dublin.

All the participants express disgust at their portrayal in the media and the tendency in wider society to tar all travellers with the one brush. They list local examples of where people were wrongly accused.

The project has undoubtedly disproved some of the myths about travellers. Siobhan McLaughlin says there is a long waiting list for places on the training schemes. "In terms of delivering training and employment, we can't meet demand." While the men get a FAS training allowance, the women take part on a voluntary basis.

Nick North, the co-ordinator of the arts and recycling project, says that because most of the men have had very negative experiences at school and on training schemes, this project aims to be responsive to what they want "so they feel they have an input rather than having something done to them".

The participants appreciate this approach. Austin Connors says it is different from other training schemes. "Here, if you put an idea to them, they would do it. In other schemes, if you had an idea they wouldn't take any notice."

While the recycling aspect of the project has not really developed yet - although finished pieces include a giant flower made from an old copper hot-water cylinder - they have received a number of commissions, such as a life-size model of a donkey for a local pub. Nick North says it will be another year before the project grows into a community enterprise.

The men also angrily recount stories of discrimination, from school experiences to being barred from pubs. They say they were turned down for jobs without being given a chance to prove themselves.

Owen McGinley says he has sent his children to an all-Irish school because he believes they are treated fairly there, whereas he has been "classed as dirt" all his life. "I don't know what the country fellas have against us," he says. Familiar with the stereotype image of traveller men, he says the actions of a few give everybody a bad name.

A father of three children, he lives with his girlfriend in a mobile home without running water or electricity. He has an open sore and an infection on his leg from a car accident, and says he has been trying to get a house for six years. "I would take a house in the morning if I got it, and I would stay in it," he says. While about one-third of the participants live in houses, others would resent any attempt to force this on them.

Fintan Farrell, the co-ordinator of the Irish Traveller Movement (ITM), says the situation has not improved since the Report of the Task Force on the Traveller Community was published in 1995. He believes, moreover, that there has been a backlash from the wider community to perceived gains made by travellers.

"Most of what has been achieved has been in the form of promises and some policy change," he says.

Across the State, there are 1,400 traveller families living without access to toilets, water or electricity. Farrell says 3,100 units of accommodation are needed, and the ITM believes a range of options must be provided, including standard and group housing, and permanent and transient halting sites.

Over recent months there has been strong resistance to plans to build halting sites at a number of places in Donegal, and Siobhan McLauglin is regularly on local radio countering anti-traveller arguments. She says people should remember travellers are being denied fundamental human rights of accommodation and education.

On the national level, Fintan Farrell says he believes it would be possible to "transform" the situation in five years, in both the conditions in which travellers live and the relations between them and settled people. He is angered by comments made over recent months by politicians and media reports, which he says, are regularly biased.

"What I can never understand is how people think that by treating travellers badly, you are going to improve the situation. If they (politicians) are going to continue by not dealing with the situation and by giving the impression that it's OK to treat travellers badly, then we are going to carry this problem way into the next millennium."

The 1995 report provided the right framework and could make a difference if implemented fully, he says. Structures recommended in the report have been set up, including a National Travellers Accommodation Consultation Group, advisory committees on traveller education and on health, and a monitoring committee within the Department of Justice. Traveller representatives hold positions on all these committees.

Under the 1998 Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act, all local authorities must set up committees with traveller representation to consult on accommodation decisions. The Act also obliges local authorities to develop five-year accommodation programmes, taking into account current needs and the expected needs in the future.

"It is not going to really change until we have a huge level of commitment from politicians," Farrell says. "At this stage it would be useful to hear from the Taoiseach that they intend to make progress on the issue. Given that there have been a number of negative statements from Fianna Fail people recently, I think an intervention from the Taoiseach is what is needed."