We are the Lemkos

Description

The project aims to prevent the exclusion of the Lemkos community living in 3 counties of the Lesser Poland and Podkarpackie provinces. There are about 2700 members of this ethnic minority living there, most of them in the Uście Gorlickie municipality. In 8 villages of this municipality there are bilingual village name boards – they were destroyed several times between 2008 and 2022. In 2018, the Watra in Zdynia festival of Lemko culture was disrupted by a group of young hooligans dressed as fans of the Polish national team. In the same year, the car of the deputy chairman of the Lemko Union was burnt. We noted numerous offensive posts on the Internet, which coincided with the publication of online articles about the Operation Vistula 1947. Ten years after deportation, some Lemkos returned to their homeland, often finding new tenants in their family home. This aroused resentment, uncertainty, opposition and fear of eviction from the property illegally taken over by the Polish community. In public spaces of the Gorlice municipality inscriptions appeared on walls saying: ‘Lemkos to the gas’. Therefore, in this project we want to reach out to a wide audience from the majority society and carry out integration and educational activities. Above all, we want to work with the youth. As part of the project we will develop and conduct multimedia lectures for primary and secondary school students from the region. Education, information and mutual opening to each other is a guarantee of social and mental changes, preventing discrimination or exclusion. Integration and educational activities will be carried out by Lemkos and thus this minority will have the opportunity to present itself to the local community.

Summary of project results

"We are the Lemkos" was a project aimed at social diversity, counteracting the exclusion of the Lemko ethnic minority living in the Małopolska and Podkarpackie provinces. The main goal of our activities was to reach a wide audience, the majority society, and above all, school youth. Our activities served to develop social and cultural diversity and build dialogue and understanding by presenting knowledge about our minority in a modern and attractive way.

After the project implementation began, we developed products in accordance with the substantive assumptions and schedule. During activity 2 entitled: Substantive development of educational and information packages, three expert teams were established. Each team developed separate thematic issues. During the implementation of activity 4 entitled: Development and production of educational and information films, educational and information films were developed. During the implementation of activity 3 entitled: Development of multimedia lectures, people responsible for the development of educational content in the form of multimedia presentations were employed. During the implementation of the activity, the educational and information films developed in activity no. 4 were used. Ultimately, 9 presentations and 5 games in the form of quizzes, 3 worksheets, 10 outlines/scripts of lectures, a map of Lemko dialects and a map of Lemko lands were created. During the implementation of activity no. 6 Intergenerational Christmas Meeting, an event integrating different generations of Lemkos from Poland and Ukraine and the local Polish population was held. In this event, we directly involved the starosta of the Gorlice district and the municipal Cultural Centre from Uście Gorlickie. During the implementation of action no. 7 (communication activities), the printing of previously developed information materials was completed. As a result, we had diplomas (500 pieces), posters (300 pieces), offer folders (300 pieces) and leaflets (18,900 pieces). There were also two information meetings/press conferences to start and end the project. During the implementation of the second and third stages of the project, we carried out work related to the implementation of action 5 entitled: Lectures in schools, we held about 200 meetings in 65 institutions, organizations and/or informal groups in the Małopolska and Podkarpacie regions. We conducted a number of presentations and had many conversations, always in a very friendly atmosphere.

Thanks to the implementation of the project, we were able to observe positive changes in the attitude of the majority community at the local level. In addition, we can see the positive attitude of the authorities of the Gorlice district and the Uście Gorlickie commune, thus influencing the creation of a positive relationship with the majority society at the local level. Our actions have contributed to a better understanding of the Lemkos, our diversity and the divisions within the community. Undoubtedly, a proper understanding of the diversity within the Lemko community can be the basis for developing areas of agreement between the Lemkos themselves in the future.

Unfortunately, the political situation in the country has a great impact on the functioning of our community locally, just before the parliamentary elections in 2023, bilingual signs in the town of Kunkowa were cut down, probably using heavy tools. Both the inscriptions in Lemko and Polish were destroyed. This act was reported to the relevant authorities. An article was published on a national website denigrating the Lemkos and, more broadly, the entire Ukrainian community in Poland. The aforementioned publication was a manipulation, where facts were deliberately mixed with lies. Unfortunately, local politicians associated with right-wing parties use the aforementioned publications to build their base and political position. The Association''s Board sent appropriate letters to the authors of the article, the Commissioner for Human Rights and the Joint Commission of Government and National and Ethnic Minorities. The situation is an example confirming the need to implement similar educational projects in the future aimed at social diversity. We reached 80 teachers and about 5,000 people from the families and surroundings of the students. We engaged minorities in the number of 30 students of Lemko origin.