🇬🇧 TELL ME ABOUT POLAND – DON’T DISAPPEAR!

Family stories told and preserved in Polish

“Tell Me About Poland – Don’t Disappear!” is a free, 45-hour programme of creative Polish-language workshops delivered by Polskie Ognisko Muzyczne (Polish Centre for Music Education) at The Stork’s Nest Community Centre in Peterborough.

The programme consists of 15 three-hour sessions for children and young people aged 6–14, accompanied by their parents or carers.

A language that lives through family stories

These are not traditional Polish lessons.

During the workshops, Polish becomes a language for conversation, asking questions, listening, discovering family roots and telling stories.

Participants become family detectives. They explore places connected to their families, talk to parents and relatives, conduct family interviews, collect words and memories, and uncover stories worth preserving.

As the programme develops, we use music, rhythm, text, storytelling and visual creativity to show children that Polish can be a language they use to create, communicate and express their own experiences.

🔎 Young Ambassador of the Polish Language Passport

Every child receives their own Young Ambassador of the Polish Language Passport, which accompanies them throughout the programme.

It becomes a personal record of their language journey — a place for family clues, new and meaningful Polish words, musical discoveries, drawings, memories and ideas developed during the workshops.

Week by week, children can see their own collection of Polish language and stories grow.

👨‍👩‍👧 Parents and carers are part of the story

A key part of the programme is the participation of children alongside their parents or carers.

Family conversations contain stories that cannot be found in a textbook — memories of people, places, journeys, music, traditions, celebrations and even words or expressions unique to a particular family.

Children are encouraged not only to discover these stories but also to ask questions about them and learn how to tell them in Polish.

✏️ From a family clue to a comic

All these discoveries eventually lead to one of the programme’s major creative outcomes — creating an original comic based on a family story.

Children explore how to create characters, organise events, plan comic panels and write dialogue before transforming real family memories into stories told through images and Polish words.

In this way, family stories do not disappear. Instead, they are given a new form by the next generation.

🇵🇱 Our mission

We want to create a space where children growing up in the UK can use Polish naturally, creatively and in connection with their own lives and identities.

It is not about speaking perfect Polish.

It is about having the confidence to speak, ask, listen, create and preserve family stories in Polish.

A language stays alive when it is used.

Don’t disappear. Tell your story. In Polish. ❤️🇵🇱

📍 Project information

Location: The Stork’s Nest Community Centre, Peterborough

Number of sessions:15

Duration:3 hours per session – 45 hours in total

Age:6–14

Participation:children accompanied by parents/carers

Cost:free of charge

Funding

The project is delivered as part of the task “Warsztaty języka polskiego i klub dyskusyjny dla Polonii w Wielkiej Brytanii” through Fundacja Młode Pokolenia.

The project is funded by the Instytut Rozwoju Języka Polskiego (Institute for the Development of the Polish Language) from the Polish state budget under Competition 5 – “Polski bez granic – wsparcie innych form nauczania języka polskiego”.