The voice of Migrants
Foreigners, who live in Poland, have led their own radio station in Warsaw in the last four years. In native language broadcasting, they try to show a more colorful and tolerant Poland.
WARSAW, POLAND — There’s only one radio station in Poland, where Poles are in minority. Alexis Angulo, who originally came from Mexico City, starts his own radio broadcast called “Desde Polonia en Español” (“From Poland in Spanish”), every Wednesday afternoon.
It’s one of the fifteen shows in Imi Radio — a special radio station for migrants and expats in Warsaw. They’re broadcasting in seven languages now, including Ukrainian, Arabic or Georgian.
“I wanted to show the diversity of Poland; to broaden the identity of Poles and the way they perceive their country. I would like to build a better understanding between cultures and around Poland itself”, says Alexis.
That’s why he tries to invite interesting people to the studio, who speak Spanish, and ask them questions about politics, social problems or culture.
“The Spanish-language community, not only from Warsaw, listens to my broadcast. I know that”, says Alexis. He is one of the fourteen journalists — mostly amateurs — who work in Imi Radio as a volunteers.
The coordinator of this project is Mamadou Diouf — musician from Senegal, who lives in Poland for 36 years.
A platform to express yourself
The radio station was established in 2015, when hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants tried to cross the borders of different European Union countries. “The idea was imported from Germany, where we visited a special radio only for migrants,” says Michalina Jarmuż from The Foundation for the Multicultural Center in Warsaw.
The mission of Imi Radio is integration and multi-culture education in the mostly homogeneous Polish society. For a lot of foreigners it’s only one place, where you can express yourself in your mother language after you came to Poland. For four years since launching Imi Radio, 42 people from 24 countries broadcast their own shows.
“In this year’s January, I’ve been really thinking about leaving Poland. I couldn’t find an internship anywhere. Why? Because I’m from Ukraine and my Ukrainian accent in Polish doesn’t sound good enough.
But I had found information about Imi Radio on the Internet and I took my chance”, says Anastasiia Dudnyk, Ukrainian student from Odessa.
In her own broadcast she invites interesting people and plays Ukrainian music. Now Anastasiia suspends her radio show, because she’s focused on her Bachelor thesis. As her topic, she’s writing about foreigners from Imi Radio.
Working, studying or escaping war zones — there are so many different motivations for foreigners who move to Poland.
According to The Office for Foreigners (UdSC), when residence in Poland became legal in 2018, about 47,000 expats moved to the country — mostly from Ukraine, Belarus, India, Georgia and Vietnam.
Although Polish labor-market needs more workforce from abroad, politicians from the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) are against open borders for migrants and refugees.
“If you don’t want a sharia zones in Poland, PiS must win the election”, said Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of ruling party PiS, few days before European Parliament election in May 2019.
Poland, led by conservative party PiS, was one of the EU countries, which did not agree with relocate asylum seekers program.
Foreigners, who live in Poland, must still face with xenophobia, anti-Semitic and homophobic assaults.
According Polish Ombudsman (RPO) report, last year 41 percent of opinions in Polish internet about Ukrainians was negative.
Moreover between 2016 and 2017 more than 18 percents of Ukrainians, 8 percents of Muslims and 43 percents people from Sub-Saharan Africa has had experience with at least one attack motivated by hate, RPO says.
Five nations with the biggest aversion in Poland
1. Arab — 65 percents,
2. Gypsies/Roma people — 57 percents,
3. Russian — 43 percents,
4. Ukrainian — 41 percents,
5. Russian — 40 percents.
Should Poland invite a refugees from countries, where are ongoing armed conflicts?
No — 60 percents,
Yes, but only to moment, when armed conflict will be end — 29 percents
Yes, we must accept refugees and give they rights to live in Poland — 5 percents.
The idea of Imi Radio can be a missing element in the collaboration between residents and migrants. Headquarters of the radio is in Praga-North, one of the eighteen Warsaw districts.
Behind the reception of The Warsaw Multicultural Center on the General Haller square, in a small studio foreigners play music and try to be the voice of their own community in Poland every day. Radio journalists can express themselves in every way with one limit — no hate speech.
“General level of respect in Poland, not only for Foreigners it’s going down year by year”, says Michalina Jarmuż.
From spring this year she coordinates a project called Multicultural Radio Academy. Students from one of the primary schools in Warsaw doing interview on air with foreigners. Children ask questions about country of origin, culture and life in Poland. It’s one of the new kinds of multi-culture education in Poland.
A hard start
“To make one hour radio broadcast, I need a medium five hours of preparing”, says Samir Saadi from Tunisia. He’s in the Imi Radio team from the beginning. Every Tuesday Samir tells more about interesting events in Warsaw in Arabic, and plays music from North Africa. In Samir’s opinion, starting a new life in Warsaw is very complicated.
“It’s impossible without Polish language. A lot of bureaucracy and no help”, says Samir. He met a Polish girl on the Internet (now they are married) and moved to Warsaw in 2010. From now on, Samir is very active in local NGO’s and works for integration and multi-culture education.
“Poles are very open and nice when you first meet them, but it’s harder if you are looking for a closer relation, like friendship. Poles don’t invite you for a coffee after first small talk, like in Tunisia”, says Samir.
Alexis from Mexico says the Polish perspective on migrants has changed after parliamentary election in 2015, when conservative party PiS took the government.
“I was looking for a place, where I can show my point of view about all of this stuff. Last year I found information about Imi Radio, and I started my radio show in Spanish“, says Alexis.
Imi Radio is based on volunteers, but isn’t free of charge. Copyright rights fees, website servers or technical support — everything is expensive. The radio station has to find more over few thousands Zloty’s to pay that every year. Money mainly comes from small grants.
But The Foundation for the Multicultural Center in Warsaw says this is not easy, because migration in Poland is a sensitive topic. “It’s even very hard to get grant programs from Ministry of Interior and Administration”, says Michalina Jarmuż.
Plans for the future? More podcasts and better PR, because there are still a lot of residents and foreigners in Poland, who don’t know about the Imi Radio activities.
“This is full volunteering. If you want to join our radio station, you must like this job and have good motivation to do it”, says Samir Saadi.
This article was written as part of the Journey: Journalism Bootcamp organised by the Bakala Foundation.
