History of the Association of Poles in Northern Finland
The Association of Poles in Northern Finland was established in December 2021.
Poles living in the Oulu area have been meeting each other for many years, but our community has never had its own special organization.
In 2019, on the initiative of Ewa, Elina, Kajaten, Ewa, Sandra and a few others, a Facebook group Poles in the Oulu area was created. This is where we started organizing our first meetings in restaurants, barbecues and trips to the beach together, for example to Hauiluoto. Over the years, the number of members of this Facebook group has grown steadily and now has over 150 members.
We Poles. really enjoy meeting up in our own company and take our Finnish partners and children with us to these meetings … Friendships started at such meetings have lasted for years.
Here is gallery from our meetings before the founding of the Association of Poles in Northern Finland.
The year 2021, despite the ongoing pandemic, was very fruitful for our group. Our celebration of May 1st in Koitelinkoski, and subsequent meetings in restaurants resulted in the idea of creating the Association. An officially registered organization makes it even easier for us to organize joint events thanks to the benefits of, for example, free room rental and raising funds from external sources.
In December 2021, thanks to the spontaneous initiative of parents of Polish children, we managed to organize Polish Mikołajki. We sang Christmas carols, children took part in various games and competitions, there was delicious food, but most of all we were visited by Santa Claus, who gave both big and small wonderful gifts. It was a fantastic time spent together.
The Consul of the Republic of Poland, Mr. Piotr Płachtański, was also interested in our initiative and not only honored us with his presence, but also gave all the children beautiful Polish books and games. There were so many of them that a large part of them was donated to the Polish language school in Oulu.
With the beginning of 2022, under the wings of the Association, we managed to organize a joint frying of donuts and faworki and a meeting on a sleigh. The whole year 2022 was full of events and actions organized by the Association. Photos from these events are available on our website.
2023 will be very active for the Association, so we invite you to participate in the upcoming events!
