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Description
Cieszyn is a border town in southern Poland inhabited by 32,000 people. Foreigners are often and often coming here in search of a home and a place to work – their numbers increased significantly after Russia''s invasion of Ukraine. Recent months have shown that, in addition to emergency support, the new residents also need places where they can integrate into the local community. Therefore, our project’s goal is to integrate the community of Cieszyn with the newcomers, but also to substantively strengthen the local activists. As part of the project, we have launched the Centre for Integration and Support for Immigrants. We host cultural events there, carry out integration and creativity workshops for children, theatre workshops for children and adults, as well as provide psychological and organisational support, and teach Polish as a foreign language. The project also aims to reach as large and diverse an audience as possible with reliable knowledge on migration and refugeeism. We run workshops and seminars for high school and university students, open debates for local residents and training for teachers. Together with representatives of local NGOs, municipal institutions and immigrant communities, we are also developing a Social Model for the Integration of Immigrants. By working together on this document we integrate local activists and empower them by enabling them to participate in consultations with our project partners and more experienced NGOs. We are supported in the implementation of the project by our partners: the StrefaWolnosłowa Foundation, the Opening Space Association, the local Granica dla Granicy (Border for Border) initiative, that share their experience and carry out some of the project’s activities, such as conducting workshops or supporting the project’s promotion.
Summary of project results
In the fall of 2021, together with the grassroots initiative Border for the Border, we started to locally publicize the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border, which in Cieszyn aroused a lot of negative emotions, mainly directed at migrant people. We then decided, as part of the hospitable Cieszyn project, to deal with the issue of migration and refugees more broadly, to reach out to the inhabitants of nek with a program of events (debates, workshops, etc.) that would familiarize them with these issues and allow them to understand the situation of hundreds of thousands of people who, for various reasons, are forced to leave your house. We wanted to change the attitudes of people living in our city in this way, so that in the future they would be more open to accepting people from outside our cultural circle into the local community. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the arrival of several thousand refugees to Cieszyn in a very short time resulted in the expansion of our project idea by two more elements. The city (including the inhabitants) provided accommodation for the new arrivals and provided basic assistance, but it had no systemic solutions and ideas on how to manage this situation and effectively integrate people who came to Cieszyn. In our project, we decided to provide these people with psychological support in looking for a job, school for children, etc., integration classes, and Polish language classes, so that they can find their way in the new reality as quickly as possible. The third element of the project was an attempt to establish cooperation with representatives of city authorities, non-governmental organizations, religious associations, and people with experience of migration and refugeehood in order to build a common Model of Support and Integration for Immigrants. So far, each of us has acted independently in various areas of supporting refugees from Ukraine. We wanted to collect these experiences, check what was successful, what was missing, what could be done better, so as to share knowledge and be able to use it in the future.
As part of the project, in 2023 we ran the Center for Support and Integration of Immigrants at the Political Criticism Community Center in Cieszyn, where several dozen people received support, including people with experience of migration and refugeehood (mainly people from Ukraine). The Center''s program includes: free Polish language classes, creative workshops for children, Polish culture and language classes for adults, theater classes for children and teenagers, free psychological consultations and legal advice. We also organized cultural events, debates and open meetings devoted to migration, refugees and broadly understood integration. As part of the theater classes, we produced a theater performance called "Mama Always Comes Back", in which Polish, Czech and Ukrainian children play. The Polish culture and language classes resulted in two public presentations of Polish poetry and prose performed by Ukrainian women.
Thanks to the implementation of the project among representatives of local offices, institutions, organizations and private individuals, including people with migration and refugee experience, we developed recommendations that were included in the Cieszyn Model of Support and Integration for Immigrants (document available online on our website). . A group of about thirty people met several times in 2023 to participate in workshops and conversations about what kind of city we want to create together.
As part of institutional development, our team improved its competences in working with people with migration and refugee experience. We held several consultations with experts representing more experienced organizations in this field, including: Polish Migration Forum, or our project partner, the Strefa WolnoSłowa Foundation. Our management staff took part in workshops aimed at improving team management skills and resolving conflicts within the team.
The "Hospitable Cieszyn" project allowed the team of our Community Center to expand their knowledge in working with people with migration and refugee experience. Thanks to the consultations we held during the project and during workshops on building a Model of Support and Integration for Immigrants, we were not only able to significantly deepen our knowledge, but also get to know and establish cooperation with numerous national and local organizations that operate in the area of support. people with migration and refugee experience. What will remain with us after the end of the project are the relationships, cooperation and knowledge described above, which we intend to develop in our subsequent community center activities and projects. Work on the above-mentioned Model also became an opportunity for in-depth reflection on shaping migration policy in our city and enabled inter-sectoral cooperation (representatives of city authorities, non-governmental organizations, religious associations and residents, including people with experience of migration and refugee participation) . We hope that the Cieszyn Model of Support and Integration for Immigrants, translated into English and Ukrainian, will set the framework for activities for people with experience of migration and refugees in our city in the coming years.
The project also brought results to the direct participants. People who took part in Polish language lessons, theater classes and meetings about Polish culture and language, people who benefited from psychological support and legal advice. Participation in the project influenced their sense of security and self-confidence. These people include: they communicate better in Polish, they better understand the Polish cultural and social context, and most importantly, they have established new relationships that help them settle into the local community.