The Power of the Net. Or the Network of Polish Women in Germany

The success of the project "PolMotion - Bewegung der polnischen Frauen" is good cause for optimism. The German-Polish mentoring programme, which has been implemented in Berlin/Brandenburg, the Hamburg/Bremen region and Bavaria, opens up new opportunities for political and cultural involvement in Germany. However, the project also highlights the problems faced by Polish women activists. Anna Czechowska, board member of agitPolska e. V. and coordinator of the project, aptly sums up its main objectives: "Work on a voluntary basis, missing structures, thinking from project to project and missing strategies for integrating other organisations".

In spite of all this, we certainly do not lack energy and commitment. We are also linked by many questions, issues and problems that need to be solved and that motivate us to work together. Some of these things also affect us. Commenting on them, Dr. Adrianna Tomczak from "Polki sobie radzą" says: "I have concentrated on helping Poles who have emigrated abroad to change their lives positively (...). Many people told me that this was a hopeless undertaking, I should abandon it because of our attitude, our mentality. The Poles are a nation that is not very integrated. It's time to change that."

On the other hand, there are structural things that we can and must influence. Referring to them, Anna Czechowska says: "I am in favour of changing the structures in Germany by encouraging women to get involved in parties, trade unions and administration. What is important for me is a stronger presence of Polish women and their cooperation with other women, regardless of whether they have a migration background or not".

Advantages in this sense are offered by cooperation, joint action and finally networking for the exchange of information, resources, mutual help and opportunities through increasing links between each other, but also the classic cultivation of contacts in the real world, for example through participation in events and projects that are useful for this purpose.

Technological development has given us the opportunity to maintain virtual contacts, something that is particularly encouraged by the use of "social media" channels. "Thanks to them, even if only virtually, we can build relationships with other people, we can find people who think and feel in a similar way, even if we are sometimes thousands of kilometres apart: people who do not exist in our immediate environment," enthuses Dr. Adrianna Tomczak of "Polki sobie radzą". This is also how Dominika Rotthaler, the founder of the group "Polki w Monachium" ["Polish Women in Munich"], who first communicated her opinions in a blog under the name "Polka w Monachium" ["A Polish woman in Munich"] and which is now called "Pani Dominika" ["Mrs. Dominika"]. She writes about German culture from a Polish perspective, about bilingualism, about life in emigration, about interesting activities for children and about travelling through Germany. The two forms of this activity often mix or even merge. Adrianna talks about this when she says: "A sister group Polki sobie radzą was created for women in Italy. Przedsiębiorcze Polki we Włoszech [Polish women do extremely well. Committed Polish women in Italy], with the difference that they have gone a step further and transferred their relationships from the virtual to the real world. These women meet in their district, stimulate each other and grow together. (...) This is only the beginning. I know there are many such initiatives all over the world, because we instinctively long for the presence and closeness of a person, which nothing, no medium, will ever replace".

We had similar feelings with the aforementioned Hamburger Brunches, which almost 100 women attended. They all expressed the need to have such initiatives that encourage people to get to know each other, build partnerships and exchange knowledge and experience. They had learnt about this event on the Internet, through invitations they received by e-mail, through posts on Facebook and, of course, through word of mouth. The meeting, the conversations and the "World Café" discussions about the emancipation of women, especially Polish women, their presence in public life and their access to the qualified labour market have aroused emotions and a sense of community.

Ela Poszumska summed it up poetically when she said: "(...) I am constantly reminded of the wonderful energy, the strength and the precious ideas that emerged from this meeting. This strengthened my existing powerful conviction that we need each other. We must meet up and share our wealth. I also know that this requires a certain ability to discern our own wealth, our own wisdom and our own splendour. If we fail to recognise all this, we will be unable to open ourselves to what is going on in the group."

So let's use the power of the net in terms of both communication technology and networking.

Greta Gorgoń, july 2019

Useful links:

http://polkiwberlinie.de

https://agit-polska.de

http://pol-in.eu

http://sprachcafe-polnisch.org

https://wir-hamburg.de

https://panidominika.de