Unite RLO team lights Polish fire in the Midlands
Polish Saturday School Starts in Worcester thanks to Unite
RLO
When Ian Bayford of the Unite Union organised a meeting for the
Polish migrant workers last year in Evesham public hall, he could
not have guessed the full significance of it.
The well attended meeting, was addressed by Roger McKenzie, West
Midlands Regional Secretary of the TUC and Dr Jan Mokrzycki,
President of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain. It not only
publicised the work of the Trade Unions in the Polish Community. It
also allowed Poles living in many of the Worcestershire towns to
come together to swap experiences and to organise.
One such was M/s Monica Wakuła, a school teacher from Poland who
decided that the Polish children living in Worcester needed a
reminder of their roots, history and traditions as well as a place
which would help them to integrate in the new society they lived
in.
Earlier this year (2008) she celebrated the opening of the 76th
Polish Saturday school with a Holy Mass led by the Rector of the
Polish Catholic Mission for England and Wales, Fr. Tadeusz
Kukla.
Helen Bennett spoke of her own experience as a graduate of a
Polish Saturday school and how this helped her to fully integrate
into British society and Dr Mokrzycki spoke of the Polish community
in the U.K integrating the community into the mainstream and the
role the Federation of Poles and the BritishTrade Union Movement in
this
The pupils were asked to take an oath promising to be good
pupils and good citizens, each individually was then accepted into
the school through being touched on the shoulder with a giant
pencil, by M/s Wakuła, the headmistress. The children were then
shown their future classrooms and let loose to join their parents
and friends at a mini feast of home baked Polish cakes, lemon tea
and pop.
A similar event has been run again this year by the Unite RLO
team of Ian Bayford; Maggie Lambert & Maureen Scott Douglas
(pictured in the fire engine)
Polish school being
opened.
A happy new pupil
