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Counseling – Education – Advocacy
Political and social sentiments became particularly hostile to foreigners living in Poland. It is essential that NGOs working in the field of human rights, migration and anti-discrimination continue their activities. This is why, despite the ongoing financial difficulties, NOMADA team still does their work. We provide people experiencing discrimination with free counseling service, we work in the field, we publish, we run trainings and workshops, and cooperate with other ngos.
Support us in this effort!
Payments will help us and our clients and you will have your contribution to the building of a society more open and friendly to all of us.
We have been operating since 2009, helping migrants in the fight for their rights. We want Wrocław to be a city where they feel safe and comfortable. We support the development of the society open to representatives of different cultures, religions and having different origins. We believe that integration is a mutual effort of the newcomers and us – the host society. We attempt to shape the attitudes of human solidarity and understanding between people of different origins and social status. We wish to overcome stereotypes and prejudices. Through our work and involvement in the lives of groups that we collaborate with, we wish to establish relations based on understanding and good communication.
What do we exactly do?
- We help foreign citizens document their stay in Poland, explain Pollish customs and realities, assist at council offices, police stations, at the doctor’s. We run a free of charge advisory point regarding the documentation of residence, family and labour law.
- We act as experts during court proceedings.
- We intervene when the migrant rights are broken.
- We educate children and adolescents by carrying out anti-discrimination activities in schools.
- We work with the community of Romanian Roma migrants and support the children from this community in the educational process.
- Since 2010 we have been carrying out the project “SUKURS – Against Bias-motivated Crimes” addressed to persons experiencing and exposed to bias-motivated crimes.
- We provide trainings for police officers, educators, social workers and other professional groups.
- We monitor public institutions from the perspective of their readiness to attend to foreigners. We participate in debates, discussions and meetings on the subject of migrations and multiculturalism. We write and publish books in which we present the perspective of migrants.
Education
Since 2012 we have supported and monitored the educational process of children from the Romanian Roma community living in Wrocław. Due to consistent efforts of many individuals, in 2014 for the first time the children from this community started formal education. Each year subsequent pupils start their education in primary schools. Their age, skills and competences are very different. Support in the form of individual compensatory classes trimmed to their needs and abilities helps them cope in the new school environment and meet the requirements of the curriculum.
Moreover, NOMADA carries out anti-nondiscriminatory educational activities addressed to majority society. In 2016, within the framework of our project Marhaba – Because It’s Worth to Cross the Various Borders project (http://nomada.info.pl/marhaba) we ran pilot workshops on the subject of anti-discrimination and refugees, addressed to teaching staff. They showed a huge need for the development of competences in this field. In turn, workshops for pupils revealed the lack of basic knowledge regarding refugees, high levels of fear and the need for work aimed at raising empathy and developing sensitivity to the situation of migrants.
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Supporting NOMADA’s activities, you secure:
- Individual support for education of children from the Romanian Roma community: compensatory classes, help with homework, catching up with the school’s programme and overcoming learning difficulties. The main goal of these activities is to help children the children progress in their learning process.
- Support for the parents in their contacts with school; support in explaining procedures, filling in documents, providing information regarding educational process and progress in the learning process. Supporting parents is especially important, because it is their first contact with Polish educational system, related procedures and regulations. Help from a person trusted by a community is conducive to better communication and collaboration between parents and school;
- Support for teaching staff, collaboration with teachers, mediating in information exchange with parents, complementing school’s activities through informal education;
- Monitoring of the Romanian Roma children’s education process;
- Development and implementation of Nomada’s educational offer: running workshops in anti-discriminatory education, including prevention and reacting to bias-motivated crimes.
Supporting the Romanian Roma community
Within the framework of activities for communities of Romanian migrants we have created a position of a Roma Family Assistant. Their main task is to provide individual support in solving everyday problems. Assistants help go through procedures, fill in forms, assists during visits in council offices, at the doctor’s, “lead” a particular family or person in order to solve a concrete problem. Family Assistants also play the role of cultural interpreters – they support the Roma in their initial contacts with civil servants, public institutions staff, doctors, public service officers.
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Language barrier and cultural differences are often problems for both sides. We help both the Roma and Poles to understand one another. It is worth mentioning that only some Romanian Roma speak Polish well enough to move self-sufficiently in the formal and administrative reality. They use simple, informal ‘street’ language. Cultural interpreters are invited to collaboration by family courts, the police, children’s homes, judicial administrators. We are in constant contact with the community. We answer their needs but also suggest actions. We try to strengthen and develop new competences. We encourage speaking on their own behalf.
Supporting NOMADA, you will help finance the work of the Romanian Roma family assistants!
Counseling
NOMADA Association experts provide free of charge counseling services to foreign citizens regarding, i.a., documentation of their stay, family matters, health and work-related issues. Access to this kind of support is the crucial need reported to us by our clients. Counseling is provided both on site – at the organisation’s office and in a form of assistance – we assist individuals at council offices, police stations, at the doctor’s, in court. We act as linguistic and cultural interpreters and translators. We support people who turn to us in solving their particular problems.
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ccording to our research, the primary problems faced by foreigners include: low or no Polish language competences, poor knowledge of socio-cultural realities, unfavourable social and economic status, sense of aversion from the surroundings, exposure to prejudices and discrimination, unfamiliarity with legal regulations and procedures. Due to these problems, migrants are met with difficulties in dealing with formal and administrative issues, which has a negative impact on their living standards. Equal access to services and possibility to participate in social life are crucial conditions of integration. This is why running the counseling office is one of the key activities of NOMADA. Counseling services are based on mutual trust and ensure full anonymity to individuals who turn to us. The counseling point is open three times a week.
Supporting NOMADA, you will help finance the work of counselors!
Advocacy
We are trying to listen carefully to the needs and expectations of people that we work with. We support migrants when they decide to speak up publicly on their own behalf. We carry out researches, monitor institutions, publish reports, talk to decision-makers, recommend changes, share good practices, appear in the media.
Learn more
‘Welcome To’ Project http://welcome.nomada.info.pl/ in which we conducted research among foreigners living in Wrocław regarding five Wrocław-based institutions (Department of Civil and Lower Silesia Regional Office for Foreigners, Border Guards, the police, railway station and coach station) in the context of their being prepared for contacts with non-Polish speakers and individuals from different cultural backgrounds. We also talked with employees of these institutions and carried out monitoring at three of them – Department of Civil and Lower Silesia Regional Office for Foreigners, railway station and coach station. Results of the research were published in a reports addressed to afore mentioned institutions that included the results of the study and recommendations.
‘Sukurs’ Project http://sukurs.nomada.info.pl/, in which we support individuals who experienced attacks due to their origins, skin colour or religion. We provide trainings and consultations for police officers, monitor prosecution proceedings and court cases. Together with other non-governmental organisations and groups we work for the improvement of the situation of migrants exposed to xenophobic and racist attacks. We run campaigns addressed to host communities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46t20K9KR4w , https://issuu.com/stow.nomada/docs/komiks_3z/2
Romanian Roma community. From the beginning of our collaboration with the Romanian Roma community living in Wrocław and other Polish cities, we have been bringing attention of the decision makers and host communities to the extreme economic exclusion of this group and discrimination on all levels that it experiences every day. We react to systemic violence (eviction treats, displacement, attacks on housing estates inhabited by Roma families). We talk to public servants at various levels of administration – from individuals receiving an application at local institution to the Prime Minister of Poland. Effects of our work attract interest of such international institutions as, i.a., the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Commission, the Council of Europe.
Thanks to your support we will be able to continue our advocacy efforts. We will be preparing and distributing reports, organising events, meeting with decision makers, collaborating with organisations from other cities.
Counteracting bias-motivated crimes
We want Wrocław to be safe for everyone – regardless of the passport they posses, who they love and in which god they believe. For this reason we establish and maintain direct contacts with persons belonging to groups exposed to bias-motivated violence – foreigners, representatives of ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTQ persons, socio-political activists. We educate them on the rights of people experiencing bias-motivated violence, provide legal advice, assist them at the police stations and in courts. We monitor situation of foreigners in Wrocław, organise trainings and present the perspective of our clients.
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Since 2010 we have continued to carry out Sukurs – Against Bias-motivated Crime project addressed to persons exposed to and experiencing bias-motivated crime. The key project activity is the one of community workers – people working with representatives of communities exposed to BMC. Community workers educate face-to-face about BMC and rights of those who experienced it and assist them during reporting to the police and prosecution as well as during court proceedings. They play the role of persons of public trust, interpreters, participate in proceedings as representatives of social organisations, act as advocates, disseminate information on the issue of BMC, carry out independent monitoring of racist incidents. Community working is a method that makes it possible to define real needs and problems of migrants and react to them adequately. Our work creates ‘snowball effect’ and makes us recognized as an organisation among migrant communities. For 5 years we have collected information about almost 430 bias-motivated attacks – verbal abuse, threats and physical attacks. We have supported persons, run workshops for police officers on this subject.
Within the framework of the project we offer free-of-charge legal advice to persons exposed to or experiencing BMC. We have also carried out a social campaign ‘See, Understand, React;, the aim of which was to present a perspective of said persons and the problem of the lack of reaction to racist incidents taking place in public space. The point of view of persons exposed to such attacks is crucial for us and this is why we strive to make their voices heard. The campaign resulted in a film featuring friends of NOMADA coming from minority groups as well as a comic book presenting real stories told by people who experienced this kind of violence.
Supporting NOMADA, you will help finance the activities of community workers!
