Olesea Ichim

Intro

Olesea, from Moldova, moved to Northern Ireland in 2018 with her husband and children. She is a hardworking mother who values her Moldovan heritage, language, and traditions, and strives to pass them on to her children. Olesea is also a student, learning English and culture, and enjoys celebrating her culture through food, music, and dancing.

Summary

Olesea is from Moldova. She came here with her husband in 2017. The lack of opportunity and poverty in Moldova was driving many Moldovans to leave their countries in search of a better way of life and opportunity to get work and make money. Many families at this time left Moldova to go to France, Italy and other European countries. Olesea’s god parents had come to NI and found work and suggested she and her husband came too. At first she didn’t want to come. Her husband had to travel a lot to get work in other countries and eventually decided to come to NI. He started to work here and after one year Olesea came with her children. It was very difficult at first but now she is happy and has made her home here.

She is a very hard worker and has such a positive attitude. This is home, she loves it here. She is happy and her children are happy but there is also a deep longing and love for her home country.
“Home is my language is “acasá” – where I feel all the time full of life and full of happiness”.

She wants her children to know her language and provide a legacy they can look back on and understand more of her parents and grandparent’s cultural history and language.

“It’s very important to keep your mother tongue….you need to keep that legacy. I worry a little bit about my children that they will still keep this legacy but I’m trying to teach them that it’s very good to know your mother tongue, you will never forget it. How will you speak to your grandmother when we go to our country? She won’t understand you! It is very important to me to keep my language going”.

Olesea is an inspiration juggling family life, working and attending English and culture classes at FSWC.

She loves to celebrate and talk about her culture, loves learning new things, gardening, growing her own vegetables and reading. She is often seen scribbling notes in the culture class she attends! She values tradition, her heritage and her national dress and loves to celebrate important dates in the calendar with family and friends both from her country and others especially with shared food, music and dancing.

In her portrait she wears her mother’s scarf and apron, honoring her rich tradition of food and clothing which Olesea is keen to retain.

Her big surprise is that she has a pet parrot! She loves this parrot; his party piece is his dancing!

“Home is my language is “acasá” – where I feel all the time full of life and full of happiness”.