On January 19, Halo Polonia, a LIVE TV programme of the Polish Public TV, TVP Polonia devoted attention to Polish people working and living in the Netherlands. The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands issued a new platform: wHolandii.pl where important information and tips about these subjects can be found.
The subject was introduced by a short documentary in which Hanka Mongard from Fair Work shared her tips and Polish immigrants talked about the reasons of coming to the Netherlands and their impressions.
Mr Krzysztof Weyher and Ms Urszula Kozłowska from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Ms Beata Bruggeman-Sękowska: journalist, writer, academic teacher from communications-unlimited.nl were invited to the LIVE discussion in the studio.
Guests from the Embassy explained the reasons for creating this platform and the content of the platform and Ms Beata Bruggeman-Sękowska talked about the Polish immigration and the problems Polish citizens encounter in the Netherlands: such as serious housing/accomodation issues, including living in overcrowded camping houses or special immigrant hotels with other Polish people instead of regular districts with other Dutch citizens. This leads to serious adaptation and assimilation issues such as: not getting acquainted with the Dutch language, Dutch customs and Duch society. Polish immigrants also do not get registered in the municipality registers if they stay on the camping site or in the immigrant hotels and therefore officially they ” do not exist”. The duration of their stay and number of immigrants is therefore not clear.
Ms Beata Bruggeman-Sękowska mentioned the website of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Netherlands where Polish citizens can also find more information about working and living in the Netherlands: http://www.haga.msz.gov.pl/pl/informacje_konsularne/polacy_w_nl/
Additionally Beata Bruggeman-Sekowska stated the importance of the existence of the Polish Information points where immigrants who do not speak any foreign language can turn to with their questions, which also helps with the addaptation and assimilation process in a new country.
The link to the show can be found here:
The show starts at 00:01:45
http://halopolonia.tvp.pl/23377581/19012016-2235
We would like to thank Polish Embassy in the Hague for their help in the research.
