South Dublin Mayor, Cllr Dermot Looney, Ambassador of Republic of Poland, Marcin Nawrot and the Head of European Parliament Office in Ireland, Francis Jacobs will be among the honourable guests who will address the participants during the opening of the event on Saturday the 30th November at 11:30am in the Green Isle Hotel, Dublin.
The conference will summarise the first phase of the ‘Vote! You are at home ’ campaign and will help planning its next stages that strive for encouraging greater participation of Polish minority in forthcoming local election 2014, both as candidates and voters. The meeting will also encourage initiatives on the local level and promote the Polish community leadership in active citizenship. The organisers are awaiting 50 Polish activists who have been taking part in the campaign as well as individuals and organisations who work with the Polish community in Ireland.
‘We aim at building a strong Polish community in Ireland; the community that is engaged and has a leading role in taking actions and participating in our new home. We were positively surprised by the fact that so many Polish media, organisations, Polish activists, community leaders, priests and Polish weekend school teachers got involved in the campaign. We will continue to e
ncourage the Polish living in Ireland to register to vote in the 2014 local elections. Poles now want to take responsib
ility and play a vital role in developing local communities’ says Barnaba Dorda of Forum Polonia, campaign coordinator.
To inspire the Polish activists to organise themselves into a strong and active community, an expert on Diasporas, Kingsley Aikins of Diaspora Matters will give a presentation to the participants.
DilWickremasinghe, the host of the Global Village show on Newstalk, is another eagerly awaited guest who will give a talk on the second day of the conference.
The event will last two days (30th November -1st December) and will consist of a series of talks, presentations and workshops.The Sunday session is open to all Polish activists, not only those taking part in the campaign but also to everyone who is involved in work on various levels with the Polish community in Ireland. There will be space for networking and building cooperation for future actions.
For more information on the event or similar projects please contact:
Dominika Topolska – dominika.topolska@forumpolonia.org
Barnaba Dorda – barnaba.dorda@forumpolonia.org; 087 291 5591
Artur Banaszkiewicz – artur.banaszkiewicz@forumpolonia.org; 0833 833 426
