Martyna Plotnicka
My name is Martyna and I am 23 years old. I come from Poland. I am a student of Lithuanian language at the university of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznan ( the city where I was born and where I am living), but now I have a break (dean’s leave), because in October 2006 my daughter Nel was born. I spent 14 months in Belfast. I was working as a housekeeper. At first I wanted to stay in Belfast for the birth and during maternity leave, but finally I decided to come back to my country, so now I am on maternity leave, and I am bringing up my little one. I am living with my parents. I would like to finish my studies, but maybe I will have to find a job. In January I started to attend a school for stylists and make¬up artists. When I am at lectures my mum helps me with Nel. This school lasts just one year so I have some time still to decide whether I want to go back to university or finish this school and find a job.
Over 14 months in Northern Ireland, living and working there taught me maturity. A lot of my friends and family were left in Poland, so for the first time in my life I had to take decisions and cope with many things without their help or advice. It taught me how to be responsible. Simply I have grown up in Northern Ireland. I think it was a very good experience. Also I was financially independent which was also a big advantage. I think my life in Poland is a little bit different from my friend’s life in Northern Ireland. As I wrote earlier I am living with my parents now because I couldn’t afford to rent a flat as a student with a small child, even without a child it would be difficult for me and I think for many young people in my country. In Northern Ireland I could afford it. I was renting a room there and I was working. I don’t know if there was anything that surprised me at the beginning, maybe the fact that people are so open minded there. In Poland it’s different, people are very closed and in Northern Ireland they seem to be smiling all the time.
There are many people from Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, who move to other more economically developed countries to find a better paid job, and many people from my country in the UK. I went to Belfast in summer 2005 with my friend from university just for two months to earn some money and then go back to Poland. We both found a job. At the end of the summer she went back to finish her studies and I decided to stay longer. I came back in September 2006. I met a lot of nice people from Poland there. Most of them had decided to move to UK for at least two years. Many of them are well educated, graduated from universities, but they didn’t know English very well. So at the beginning they worked for example as housekeepers. I visited Belfast with my daughter at the beginning of May this year and I found out that most of my Polish friends in Belfast have found better jobs, because they started to learn English. Now they can communicate without problems. This effort was worth it. I think they are really brave, strong and ambitious. If there was a better economic situation in Poland they wouldn’t move, but the Polish situation is really at a bad level, so I am not surprised they want to work there where wages are better. This group of people is hard working. They want to achieve something. They are kind and intelligent, but there is another group of Polish people in UK who don’t give a good pattern. They came to UK thinking that a job will come to them. They are lazy and to be honest I am ashamed of them. Many of my Polish friends are ashamed of them as well. When I visited Belfast in May I had a chat with my friends about it and they told me they don’t want to identify with Polish people who act in a bad way even if they are from our country. They put all of us Poles in a bad light. I wouldn’t be surprised if people in UK are angry because of so many people from other countries settling down there, but I had a really nice chat with my friend from Scotland recently and she said something really clever; that we shouldn’t generalize. There are nice people and un-¬nice people everywhere and she said it’s really interesting to have foreigners in the UK because they make it more cosmopolitan.
Emilia Kosinska
My name is Emilia and I am from Poland. I am 24 years old. At the moment I am living in Belfast and I still consider living here as a temporary situation even though it has been almost two years now. I work as a Community Interpreter, a fancy¬ sounding job that I am pretty glad to have. Various hours, different places and people ¬that suits me well.
Until I got work as an interpreter I worked on couple of jobs which I cry about whenever I think of them: glass collector (or casual waiting staff if you prefer), sales advisor, sales assistant (just if there was any difference), waitress. I really did not enjoy them and the thought of being stuck behind a cash till or bar was not tempting. So I was taking the Community Interpreting course, which was quite demanding and time consuming, attending a Proficiency in English course at Belfast Institute and working. I remember it as a not very nice time and I am glad it is over.
It has never looked that I would actually end up in Belfast, neither was it a plan. Three years before coming here I started university, fancy¬ sounding again (at least to me), Lithuanian Philology at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan. I met great people there, both lecturers, teachers, university staff and fellow students. I wish I was more in touch with them all now. The programme of studies involved a compulsory semester in Lithuania, and I went to Kaunas.
I think that if it was not for Kaunas I would have never got to 'Norn Iron'. Apart from meeting many new people there, like our very successful career ¬orientated girl Sinead, and leading very much of a student life there (there is nothing better than being an international student! ¬and the level was a bit lower than in Poznan), I met Mark there and he is the reason why I chose to quit everything and come here. Happily, we are still together and it is just getting better.
I must say we are leading a pretty happy life here now, even though I did not like it at the beginning. We managed to get our friends we met in Lithuania, other international students, to come and live here. I find it quite funny. However, we both try to get out of here as often as we can, meaning a constant feeling of guilt because of carbon emission foot print.
At the moment my biggest focus is on two exams I am going to sit soon, my tax return (amounts almost like in Scandinavia, what a pity that the life quality is somewhat worse) and permanent lack of time to handle it all.
I do not intend to pigeonhole anybody but I never considered myself as an economic migrant. It feels rather like being a gypsy (yes, it is that so “politically incorrect” word). I do not know where my home will be and if there will be one.
A migrant worker is a person, “who moves from one region or country to another, habitually moving from place to place especially in search of seasonal work” - ¬this is a definition found on the internet. But nowadays migrant workers, especially those from Poland, are not only looking for seasonal work; ¬they are looking for permanent jobs and this is mostly caused by the economic situation in their own countries. Working as an interpreter within Health and Social Services has enabled me to have a closer look at the everyday life of Polish migrant workers. Moving from a country involves much stress, particularly if you intend to do it with your family. Many people are not aware of laws and rights in their own countries and continue in the same way here in Northern Ireland.
Recently I encountered a number of problems people have had with their employers. I found some stories quite shocking. However, the people I talked to seemed to take it as it is. For instance, one young woman was working in Northern Ireland for two years without her National Insurance Number simply because her employer assured her that they were going to organise it for her. Luckily for her, she decided (after two years!) to go to the Jobcentre to apply for one. Practically it means that she worked in Northern Ireland for two years without rights for her state pension, health care, and without paying tax.
There are also Polish workers who are fully aware of their rights and they know that their employer is breaking the law by not enforcing it. They are too afraid to do anything about it because they do not speak English well enough to feel confident to discuss issues like wages, hours of work, breaks during work and so forth. They feel discriminated against as well but they say there is nothing that could be done to change it as local people treat them as a threat and sometimes worse.
There are several organisations whose aim is to help migrant workers, so they are not left out, and usually they are of great help for migrants. However I have heard that some of them are badly organized. For example staff working there can be very rude and unprofessional towards their own clients, especially when the client is not their friend or an acquaintance of any sort. The officers tend to be late for arranged meetings, their own knowledge of English seems not to be proficient enough (for example explaining letters from the tax office and interpreting them in the wrong way). The list continues.
These are just grim examples of how life in Northern Ireland might look for migrant workers. Fortunately, it is not a rule.
Sinead Dorris
My name is Sinead Dorris. I am 24 and currently live in Belfast City where I have lived most of my life. I live with friends but my family are close by and I see them often, particularly my twin sister Marie. I completed university last summer with a degree in Media Studies and have spent the last year trying to find a good job in the very small and competitive media industry here in Northern Ireland. After finishing my temporary job at Christmas working for a local film festival in Belfast I spent the last few months volunteering for a few production companies around Belfast to improve my skills and develop my CV.
To finance this I have had to work nights in a theatre/ bar in the developing Cathedral Quarter area of Belfast which I actually love. Belfast at the moment is really developing with lots of interesting things happening; every week there seems to be another festival or interesting event of some kind happening and the Cathedral Quarter seems to be at the heart of this. Working in the theatre has given me the opportunity to witness the vast growth in interest in the arts in Northern Ireland; I think that in the past the troubles of Northern Ireland prevented the arts from developing and playing a part in our society but now we are starting to embrace the artistic talent that surrounds us and I love witnessing this change in Belfast. I feel that the development of an arts culture here is a prime example of how the political and economic changes in Northern Ireland are having an effect.
I have always loved to travel and during my second year at University I was given the opportunity to study abroad for a semester. I chose to go to Lithuania as I was interested in how Eastern Europe was developing and thought it would be very educational and a worthwhile experience. I studied in Kaunas which was a wonderful city and found myself living in a dormitory with lots of other students from all around Europe. It wasn’t long before I settled in and made friends and this is where I met Emelia. Although we were studying different subjects at the University and were very different from each other we found similar interests and soon developed a friendship. I guess that by choosing to study in a different country to our own we both had the desire to be independent; experience a different way of life; meet people from other countries and see a bit more of the world.
After developing a relationship with another student from Northern Ireland who had also gone to Kaunas to study, Emelia decided to move to Belfast so that they could remain together. We stayed friends and I love her being here. Sadly I don’t get to see her enough as we are both so busy working but we meet up when we can. Emelia works very hard and I have lots of respect for her. From my own experience I know how hard it is to develop a career after studying and Emelia has done this in a strange country while knowing very few people. This has taught me how relevant and important it is to have the ability to speak languages other than our own. I have learned from Emelia that in Poland learning languages is greatly encouraged and has enabled many Polish people to successfully move to another European country. I don’t think that we appreciate the importance of being multi¬lingual and after living in Lithuania and befriending people from all around Europe I feel really disadvantaged and quite ignorant that I cannot communicate in any other language than English and this is something that I intend to rectify.
I would love to have the courage to move to another country and work but I know from Emelia’s experience and the experiences of other migrant workers here in Northern Ireland that it is not an easy thing to do.
As I mentioned before I love to travel. Before attending University I took some time out and spent a few months volunteering in Namibia in Southern Africa. I loved the time I spent there, it was perhaps the most life changing experience I am likely to have. I fell in love with Africa and returned the following year for a few months to back¬pack from Capetown in South Africa to Nairobi in Kenya. Whilst living in Lithuania I also took a trip with Emelia and some other fellow students through Latvia into Russia. This is only the beginning of some of the adventures I hope to have, I intend to travel loads more in the future, meeting lots of new people and experiencing what else the world has to offer.
Before taking part in this project I have to admit that I had not given too much thought to the issue of migration in Northern Ireland. I had obviously noticed the increased number of foreign people here but I hadn’t really considered the reasons why it was occurring and the consequences it was having on both the region and those who have migrated here. I spend a lot of time with Emelia and consider her a good friend of mine but until this project I don’t think I really thought too much about what it must actually be like for her living and working in Northern Ireland and the problems she has encountered like so many others that have moved here.
Looking back, as a young person growing up in Belfast it was a rare occasion that I ever came into contact with anyone who wasn’t from Northern Ireland. When holidaying as a child in a local seaside town I sometimes met tourists and remember thinking how fantastic it was to speak with someone from another country, to listen to foreign languages and accents and hear about where they were from. I had never been on a summer holiday outside of Ireland so it was a novelty for me to meet people who were not from here. From a young age I had always wanted to travel overseas, not only to see how the world outside Northern Ireland looked but also to learn about other cultures and traditions and learn what people were like outside Belfast.
In comparison with today, rarely a day goes by when I don’t talk with someone not originally from the region. It is hard to believe just how quickly the change has happened, in a matter of a few years the population of Northern Ireland has vastly diversified. I guess I just embraced it without understanding what was actually happening and just thought it was a fantastic thing that people from other countries actually wanted to come to Northern Ireland to visit and live.
After visiting a number of Western European countries in my late teens I really noticed how different Northern Ireland really was as a result of the 'Troubles'. Walking around the streets of Paris, Amsterdam or even Dublin there are people from all over the world; lots of different languages can be heard and people from a wide range of cultures can be seen. I loved this and began to feel that Belfast city was really missing the exciting vibe found in other European cities.
In recent years though I began to feel that the city was becoming so much more vibrant as more cultures have become immersed in Northern Irish society. Through introducing new styles of music, theatre, poetry, art, fashion etc. the region has become so much more interesting.
All of this I guess has happened as a result of the political stability and economic growth and development of the region in recent years. Tourists feel safer visiting the region and for people looking for somewhere to move to, to live and work, Ireland seems like an appropriate place. I have pretty much always thought this to be a good thing, it has made Belfast more like other European cities, it has made me think of Ireland as being a much more interesting, beautiful and attractive place to live as opposed to a region avoided due to its history and trouble.
I guess this was quite a romanticized, naïve view of the current situation in Northern Ireland. It is not that simple, and the change has not exactly been well received by much of the Northern Irish people. In a country that has spent so many years divided and fighting over religion and politics, sadly it is not surprising I suppose that many people are now insisting on dividing the region over ethnicity as well. The influx of migrant workers into Northern Ireland has happened so suddenly that perhaps the region wasn’t quite ready for it as in many ways it is still recovering from its problems of the past. I think that much of the population believe that it is not good for the country’s development but personally I think that the people of Northern Ireland need to be a lot more accepting and open minded instead of replacing the Catholic/ Protestant divide with an ethnic one.
The issue of migration in Northern Ireland is not all problem-fuelled. There are many people in Northern Ireland who have welcomed the change. Many migrants that have moved here have found Northern Irish people very welcoming and have been able to make a home for themselves and their families and make friends. I think that we have to do a lot better though at making the lifestyle for migrant workers here better. It cannot be easy to leave your home and family behind and try and make a worthwhile living in a strange environment and we need as a society to make this move more manageable.
Over recent years I have made friends with many people who have come here in search of work to try and better their lives and found even simple things such as opening a bank account difficult, never mind gaining a position in a job that is appropriate to their education and experience. I have heard of many cases where migrant workers have had to take on jobs here that they are over qualified for and receive poor wages. Never mind the blatant acts of racism that have been experienced.
The issue of migration in Northern Ireland is relatively new so where things go from here is anyone’s guess. Hopefully though, the region will continue to develop and grow in a positive direction and succeed as a multi¬cultural society. It’s up to the people of Northern Ireland now to decide where we go from here.
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