1594 Educators providing Courses

Merseyside Polonia

merseyside polonia

Liverpool,

Merseyside Polonia is the most recognised Polish not for profit organisation in the Northwest of England. It was established in 2009 as a charitable organisation. The organisation is based in Liverpool but the project and events often involve communities from other boroughs on both sides of the River Mersey. In the past few years, Merseyside Polonia has built up strong links with local authorities and services, arts and community organisations as well as other institutions and founders: among them Liverpool City Council, Polish Cultural Insititute in London or BBC Children in Need. The organisation was registered on 9th of June 2009 and is governed by a Board of Trustees. Merseyside Polonia governing documents are Memorandum and Articles of Association. Main objects of the organisation are: to raise awareness of the Polish Community and culture among the local community to support community development of Polish and other communities to build community cohesion by increasing understanding between communities representing different cultural backgrounds Areas of work ARTS Polish names such as Polanski, Chopin or Lem are well known worldwide. Our aim is to give you a chance to celebrate and experience contemporary Polish arts in Liverpool together. We support a range of activities across the arts – from literature and film festivals, reading groups, poetry slams, film premiers, to music concerts and dance workshops. In the past few years we have been working with local artists, well known Polish writers and filmmakers, storytellers, poets, musicians, UK based publishers, arts institutions, and venues. CULTURE A culture is a great tool for building strong relationships. We believe that a variety of events we offer give our participants an opportunity to engage and explore culture in many creative forms. We organise Family Arts and Crafts Workshops, celebrate Polish and English traditions, such as: Christmas, St Andrews Night, Polish Midsummer Festival, and more. All this allows participants of our events to be part of the famously diverse culture of Liverpool. HISTORY If you would like to find out more about Poland, Polish people and the role they played in the history of Merseyside, you have arrived at the right place. Merseyside Polonia engages with residents, local groups, schools and guests, to create greater awareness, appreciation and opportunities for celebrating the fascinating history of Poland. We encourage different groups of participants to promote our history and unfold our heritage, through a variety of events and activities – from lectures and films to educational programmes, school trips, and research. Enjoy exploring the history and heritage of Polish people in Poland and Merseyside.

InnovateHer

innovateher

Liverpool

Only 19% of the digital tech workforce in the UK is female, compared to 37% across all sectors. It’s proven that the gender gap costs the tech sector time and money, but it also contributes to the challenges we have sourcing talent and widens the digital skills gap. Our exploration of diversity Our journey began in 2013, as Liverpool Girl Geeks. We created a community of like-minded people in Liverpool who wanted to progress gender equality in tech. In the beginning we organised meet ups for adults, but we soon realised that we could make a real difference if we mobilised the community, so we began running educational programmes led by industry with the aim of helping minority groups progress. In 2015 we launched our first educational programmes for teens. We recognised that we needed to work with girls as young as twelve to tackle the gender stereotypes that are so entrenched within women by the time they reach adulthood. What we noticed within our first few cohorts of teen girls was the lack of background diversity. Students that attended were from similar backgrounds, with supportive parents who may already work in tech (or a related field), from mostly white families, who could afford to bring their child to the sessions we were hosting in Liverpool City Centre each week. Our Co-Founders are women who have both grown up in low income families and wanted to make sure that our programmes reached girls from different backgrounds. As two (relatively young!) white women, they were also acutely aware that we needed to work with a diverse set of industry mentors to ensure that we had a broad range of people of all ages, backgrounds and identities to inspire the students. This includes working with male role models too, as we don’t want to exclude anyone from our mission. A turning point was at the Big Bang Fair in 2016, where we were exposed to hundreds of schools across the U.K. The students that attended were from different nationalities, ethic backgrounds and a multitude of faiths. We realised that to engage a truly diverse range of young people we had to remove all barriers to them accessing our programmes. Shortly afterwards we rebranded as InnovateHer and took our educational programmes into schools. We prioritised working in disadvantaged areas across Liverpool and Manchester. Since then we have worked with girls from a broad range of backgrounds; including families who are asylum seekers, looked after children, girls in faith schools and girls who identify as non-binary, trans or queer.