Sunday, October 05, 2008

Merseyside Polonia



Please read about this new project that councillors in Kensington and Fairfield and Picton are supporting. The text that follows is from Gosia McKane, the event organiser.

Yellow House would like to invite you to a series of monthly events developed as part of our new project Merseyside Polonia. The first one will take place on 10th October 2008 from 6.30 pm to 9 pm at The Academy of St. Francis of Assisi (by Newsham Park), Gardner's Drive, Liverpool, L6 7UR. The events are free and open to everybody.

The aim of the Merseyside Polonia project is to create an opportunity for people from different cultural backgrounds to meet and get to know each other.

Since Poland joined the EU in 2004 there has been a large number of Polish people moving to the UK.

On one side they are appreciated as hard working and on the other, headlined as taking our jobs, the new migrant minority has created mixed feelings.

Many of the Polish people work hard and after a long working day, they come home to sleep and then go back to their jobs the next day, therefore their engagement within the local community and cultural life of the city is limited.

The impact the migration had on the neighbourhoods and its population was considerable, therefore the local community became wary of newcomers, their intentions, their way of life and even if they would like to get to know them, they were uncertain how to go about it.

During the Merseyside Polonia events we will present Poland and its culture through photos and stories, watch new Polish films with English subtitles, share information about local services, try Polish food, have a chat and develop some new ideas or projects together.

2 comments:

Louise Baldock said...

For those who cannot get there, we think the next one will be November 7th, same time, same place. I will be doing a ten minute slot on the role of a councillor and in particular how residents can engage us, through surgeries, through Your Community Matters, etc, so that they can learn how to access our services and get help from us and tell us what their priorities are etc.

Anonymous said...

Marek and me went, it was great getting him to translate some of my tales of Haunted Kensington (and Fairfield) in Polski, I even learnt a few word myself, "Gindobreh" (Hello) "setrasham, tepanja resumja pan anglesku" excuse me do you speak english? > Marek is currently translating my latest tale "Stig of the Rink" in Polish for my blog