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Description
The project is addressed to refugees staying in the Centre for Foreigners in Łuków, as well as to people who have recently left the Centre. Our organisation has been operating in this area since 2009. We provide the Centre with necessary articles, such as clothing or bedding. We help both the people who have been recently evacuated from Afghanistan and those who stayed there before. As part of the project we will conduct psychological first aid workshops for first responders – volunteers and teams of organisations and institutions working with refugees. For refugees staying in Centre for Foreigners in Łuków workshops on coping with stress and emotions will be held. For those who came to Poland from Afghanistan and want to stay longer, we will offer Polish language classes. The classes will be held online, so that people who have already left the Centre and are staying in private houses, as well as their friends or neighbours will benefit from them, including those who want to study in Poland. We also want to support a group of Chechen women who have become involved in helping the Afghans – we will provide English classes for them, because we believe that English can be a common language for both groups. Moreover, a female assistant with refugee experience will be employed at the Centre. Cyclical educational and artistic workshops will take place all the time throughout the project. Cultural support for adults will be also offered in the form of a series of meetings for residents of the Centre, but also for anyone interested.
Summary of project results
When applying for funds, our goal was to support refugees who came to Poland from Afghanistan. The group we took care of stayed at the Center for Foreigners in Łuków. When the project activities began, most people had already left the Center, hence our goal was to support them through online activities. The second important problem that we wanted to solve is support and help for refugees from Ukraine who came to Poland due to the war in their country.
Completed activities:
Psychological and linguistic support, Employment of an assistant to help in the center in Łuków, Linguistic support, Educational and artistic workshops for children and cultural support for adults, Communication and promotion.
Products:
We included all people living in the Center for Foreigners in Łuków, as well as interested people living outside the Center, in the project activities.
These were 26 people from Afghanistan who had already left the centers and 142 people from the center = 168 people.
As part of the project, we organized:
- 65 online meetings (each 1.5 hours) - learning Polish for people from Afghanistan,
- employment of an Assistant to help in the center for 8 months;
- 60 hours of English learning;
- 57 hours of educational and artistic workshops for children (58 children);
- meeting with a representative of MOPR (2h)
- meeting with an employee of the Łuków City Hall (5h)
- intercultural walk with the Director of the Cultural Center in Łuków (3h)
The added value of the project is establishing cooperation with the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. Both students and lecturers teach Polish on a voluntary basis. 22 people took part in individual lessons at UMCS, and 14 in group lessons.
meeting for local media. A total of 30 people participated in the meeting, and 50 people in the part open to residents of Łuków.
21 people "live" and 10 people online took part in workshops and psychological meetings.
The implemented action is a concrete change. Each of the recipients of our project could notice it in themselves. The children participating in the classes prepared an artistic performance, which allowed us to go to Chełm and present their skills to the audience of the Youth Cultural Center in Chełm on June 15, 2022. A group prepared by Elżbieta Rojek (poems) and Tomasz Kozdraj - a girls'' music group - performed there. Learning English is an opportunity that opens up a "world" for people from the center.
However, we feel that learning Polish for people who came from Afghanistan is a challenge and a need. The younger ones managed to cope. After leaving the centers, universities helped them and many of them became students. The situation is different with people who did not start studies immediately and had families but wanted to stay in Poland.
We observe changes primarily on two levels: linguistic and social. Among the current students there are younger and older people, but also those who started their studies in Poland. Their language skills have definitely improved, they have learned the material, they can communicate, they are more willing to speak, they are starting to use Polish to talk about themselves, and they feel more motivated. People from Afghanistan who did not even know English before, which served as our "bridge language", thanks to the teachers'' efforts and determination, use basic Polish phrases and are familiar with Polish. Reports from teachers and students give us a guarantee that they are making progress. From the psychologist''s report, we learned that there is a lack of basic knowledge regarding the regularity of children''s development, understanding developmental problems and the impact of experiences on "maladaptive" behavior in oneself and others, as well as the role and methods of regulating the nervous system. They lacked knowledge about culture shock and typical and normal reactions to stress.