Emic Foundation, Toruń, Poland
Academic Centre for Culture and Arts "Od Nowa", Toruń, Poland
Nationalist movements and general hostility towards foreigners have been increasing and growing in Poland for a while now. Through our project, we wanted to address it by showing our sensitivity, curiosity, and hospitality towards different cultures present in Poland. We’ve been organizing expedition meetings in Toruń that have been gaining in popularity. The key element of these gatherings was always a guest speaker from a different country, currently living in Poland, and willing to tell us about their homeland. That way we wanted to fight stereotypes pertaining to other cultures, learn about them “first hand,” and gain some of the traveler’s sensitivity and go beyond our traditional European frame of reference.
As part of the project, we have organized a much larger event, involving residents of Toruń and other partner organizations. We conducted workshops on multi-culturalism and immigration for young people from both Polish and immigrant families. Emic Foundation, which acted as our partner, supported us in running our educational and theater classes, as well as in creating an instructional video for other institutions willing to hold similar workshops. Together with another partner, the Academic Center for Culture and Art “Od Nowa,” we have organized a Nationwide Immigrant Poetry Slam “Babel,” during which both immigrant and Polish poets shared their work in English. There was also a series of meetings about Georgia, Morocco, and Columbia, during which citizens from these respective countries told us about their homelands. As part of our meetings, we cooked traditional dishes. Along with our third partner, Dwór Artusa Cultural Center in Toruń, we have organized a third edition of the “ŚwiatoPogląd Festival.” Once more, lectures on Georgia, Morocco, and Columbia took place, as well as arts classes and concerts showcasing traditional music from these countries.
The completion of our project helped individuals living in Toruń get familiar with cultures of other nations and provided an opportunity for closer integration between city’s residents. From our conversations with participants, we know that they were able to make new acquaintances with foreigners living in their city and notice many advantages of having many different cultures present in their hometown.
