We’ve received funding to support the Polish language in Peterborough! 🇵🇱❤️

We have some wonderful news!

We have received PLN 25,600 in funding to support the learning and development of the Polish language among children and families living in the UK.

The funding has been awarded under Competition 5, ‘Polish Without Borders – Supporting Other Forms of Polish Language Education’, as part of the project ‘Polish Language Workshops and a Discussion Club for the Polish Community in the United Kingdom’, delivered through Fundacja Młode Pokolenia (Young Generations Foundation).

The project has been funded by the Institute for the Development of the Polish Language from the Polish state budget.

This support is particularly important to us because it allows us to develop something that has been at the heart of our work from the very beginning – helping children growing up in the UK build a living, natural connection with the Polish language.

Not through more obligations and extra lessons.

Through music, play, creativity, family stories and shared experiences.

Polish that children want to use

Children growing up in the UK experience a very different linguistic environment from their peers living in Poland.

English is everywhere – at school, with friends, in the media and throughout everyday life. Polish often remains the language of home and of conversations with parents or grandparents. Over time, children may hear and use it less and less.

This is particularly noticeable in families where only one parent speaks Polish. English can very quickly become the easier and more natural language for the child.

That is why we believe that if we want children to want to speak Polish, we need to give them a genuine reason to use it.

We do not want Polish to be associated only with studying, having mistakes corrected or yet another obligation.

We want it to be the language of music, play, discovery, creativity, laughter and telling their own stories.

This approach has been part of our work at PCEM from the very beginning. We show children that language can be developed through songs, rhythm, theatre, conversation and shared experiences.

Thanks to this funding, we can now take that idea even further.

‘Tell Me About Poland – Don’t Disappear!’ 🔎🇵🇱

One of the main activities within the project will be a new series of Polish-language family workshops:

‘Tell Me About Poland – Don’t Disappear!’

We have 15 three-hour sessions ahead of us – 45 hours of exploring the Polish language together.

But these will not be traditional lessons.

We will need Polish to talk, ask questions, listen, discover, create and tell stories.

We will explore family histories and roots, interview parents and grandparents, discover places connected to our families’ stories, and search for words, memories and stories worth preserving.

We will play with language through music, rhythm and songs, and turn real family stories into comics and creative storytelling.

There will also be plenty of Polish traditions, customs, Christmas carols and all those words that sometimes cannot simply be translated into English – because they carry much more than their literal meaning.

Young Polish Language Ambassador Passport

Every child taking part in the workshops will receive their own Young Polish Language Ambassador Passport.

It will accompany them throughout the programme.

They will use it to collect new words, family clues, stories, places, memories and linguistic discoveries along the way.

We want children to see that Polish does not exist only in a textbook.

It is present wherever their family and its story can be found.

Because language is also memory ❤️

Connecting language with family history is particularly important to us in this project.

We want to encourage children to ask questions:

Where does my family come from?Where did my grandparents live?What was their childhood like?What songs did they listen to?Which traditions do they remember?What stories would they like to pass on to me?

Because language does not exist separately from people.

It lives in family stories, sayings, songs, jokes, recipes, memories and conversations around the table.

And when Polish becomes less present in a child’s life, some of those stories can also become increasingly difficult for the next generation to access.

That is where our message comes from:

‘Don’t disappear!’

Don’t disappear, Polish language.Don’t disappear, family stories.Don’t disappear, memories of where we come from.

You don’t need to speak perfect Polish

This is really important to us.

The workshops are for children aged 6–14 together with their parents or carers, particularly families whose children do not attend a Polish Saturday school.

Children do not need to speak, read or write Polish perfectly to take part.

We also warmly welcome children who understand more than they can say, who reply to their parents in English, mix the two languages or simply need a little more time to find the right Polish word.

These are exactly the children for whom we want to create a space where it is safe to try.

No grades.No school pressure.No correcting every sentence.

Instead, there will be plenty of opportunities to listen, speak and use Polish in meaningful, real-life situations.

We will learn through conversation, music, movement, drawing, listening, creativity and activities that children and parents can enjoy together.

We’re starting on 12 September!

Our first workshop will take place on Saturday 12 September 2026 in Peterborough.

Participation in the project is free of charge, and the full programme consists of 15 three-hour sessions.

We hope that over the coming months we will create countless new Polish sentences, family conversations, stories, comics, songs and memories.

But more than anything, we hope that at the end of this shared journey, every child will be able to say:

‘This is my story. And I can tell it in Polish.’ ❤️🇵🇱

The project is being delivered as part of ‘Polish Language Workshops and a Discussion Club for the Polish Community in the United Kingdom’, through Fundacja Młode Pokolenia (Young Generations Foundation).

Funded by the Institute for the Development of the Polish Language from the Polish state budget under Competition 5 – ‘Polish Without Borders – Supporting Other Forms of Polish Language Education’.

Funding awarded: PLN 25,600.00

Total funding value of the project: PLN 35,750.00

Agreement date: August 2026