Ewelina Dus

Intro

Ewelina, a Polish immigrant in Northern Ireland, cherishes her cultural heritage and strives to pass it on to her children. Despite language and cultural challenges, she has built a successful baking business and dreams of opening a coffee shop.

Summary

Ewelina is from Poland. She has been here 20 years with her children who are in school and were born in NI. This is home for her, she loves life here although as her children have got older she reminisces about Poland, her family and upbringing with a great passion even though her early years were far from easy. She explains how when you get older and the children are older and more integrated in the local culture in Mid-Ulster it is harder to hold on to culture heritage, although she is keen to do her best and believes through the Heritage Journeys Project this is an opportunity to provide a cultural legacy for her family.

Polish traditions around holiday times for instance Christmas and Easter are very dear to her. When her children were younger she celebrated important events and incorporated many Polish traditions into family life. Christmas Eve traditions are recalled by her, the first star, the 12 dishes and she has passed these traditions down to her children. Although traditions have been somewhat lost but her cultural identity is still important to her. Nowadays she speaks more English than Polish but her children did learn Polish and before Covid they often travelled to Poland for summer holidays.

She has a great determination and an incredible work ethic despite the many cultural and language challenges she has faced but her resilience has been demonstrated time after time and she is a great encourager to keep going. She has discovered a joy for cooking and baking and has developed a business around her passion. Her dream is to one day have a sweet and treat coffee shop.

Her cakes are hugely irresistible!

“I would say to a young woman thinking about coming here to have an open heart. In 20 years everything has changed since I came first. I think it’s harder now and more scary but come with an open heart and an open mind and be prepared because anything can happen and it will not be easy. But it is ok not to be easy, that is how we grow and she will always be welcomed here.”

“Home is where my heart is.”