Sisters Oksana Malko and Olga Tabinova are professional musicians and teachers. In their hometown in Ukraine, they not only played in an orchestra but also trained generations of young musicians for many years. Today, they help Ukrainian children settle into school in Poland.
“When the war broke out, we feared for our lives and the lives of our children. We packed a few essential things, took our saxophones, and came to Katowice,” they recount.
“We immediately started looking for jobs. We cleaned shops, factories, and even worked in a coal miner’s office,” says Oksana Malko. “We wanted to continue our careers as musicians, but there were no vacancies in music schools.”
“While passing through Market Square in Katowice, we heard a brass band. They didn’t have anyone playing the saxophone, so we immediately went to ask if they needed someone. They invited us to play with them, but it wasn’t a job, just volunteering,” says Olga Tabinova. “We missed music so much that immediately decided to join them. Our conductor really wanted to help us. He called all his acquaintances and asked around for work. Eventually, he reached his former student, who was now a primary school principal. He learned that the school had just received support from UNICEF to hire two intercultural assistants.”
Today, the 2024/2025 school year marks another year of work for Ms. Olga and Ms. Oksana at Primary School No. 11 in Katowice, where one in four students is a refugee from Ukraine. In addition to Ukrainians and Poles, the school also has children from Belarus, Canada, Russia, and Spain.
“The hardest part was figuring out what we could do with the students, what Polish law allows us to do, because we are not teachers here, we do not teach any subjects, but we work with and for the students,” says Olga.
“And of course, there was the stress of whether the children would accept us, or the teachers would be hostile,” adds Oksana. “So that everyone knew who we were and so the students could recognize us, we wore red paper hearts.”
At the Katowice school where Oksana and Olga work, there are 60 children from Ukraine. Not all of them need the same level of support and assistance. The assistants individually assess each situation and meticulously plan tailored actions.
“Like in any school, there are conflicts here too,” says Olga Tabinova. “The mother of one girl who spent a few months in third grade decided that her daughter should repeat the whole school year. Her former classmates, now in fourth grade, began mocking her. We put on a play for them. We pretended the class was in a Ukrainian school and taught the lesson in a language the Polish children barely understood. The students realized how difficult it is to find your way in a school where everyone speaks a foreign language and how much extra effort is needed to keep up with the teacher. This really changed the situation. The Polish children became more supportive of their foreign classmates.”
Bullying is one of the most common reasons cited by Ukrainian children who decide to stop attending Polish schools. The work of intercultural assistants aims to help eliminate this issue.
“Thanks to the work of the assistants, it is much easier for Polish teachers,” says Gabriela Marks, the school principal. “Our new students, who have only recently arrived in Poland and started their education in the Polish system, not only do well in their studies thanks to the intercultural assistants but also achieve success in other areas. They get involved in sports clubs, music classes, art activities, and interest groups. We manage to equip these students with skills that will be useful in their adult lives.”
Nearly 37,000 children attend schools in Katowice, including over 2,500 Ukrainian students who have arrived in the last two years. Both Ukrainian children and students of other nationalities benefit from the support of 100 intercultural assistants, who were hired in Katowice’s educational institutions at the start of the escalation of the war in Ukraine, thanks to UNICEF’s support.
Intercultural assistants are now an integral part of Polish schools. Since September 2024, UNICEF, along with other organizations and under the leadership of the Ministry of Education, has been working in a task force focused, among other things, on support for intercultural assistants in Polish schools.
At the same time, the UNICEF Refugee Response Office in Poland, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and humanitarian partners, launched the “Back to Learning” campaign to support the enrolment and integration of refugee children into Polish schools. As part of the campaign, a wide range of free, high-quality, and user-friendly materials are being offered to help teachers meet the needs of diverse learners in multicultural classrooms, and to help pupils adjust smoothly to their new environment. The campaign will run throughout the 2024-2025 school year.
Source: UNICEF
