December 6th is St Nicholas Day. Not so well known here in England, but widely celebrated elsewhere in the world and  especially in East and Central Europe. It’s therefore no surprise that with a larger migrant community amongst us these days that Mikuláš (in Czech) or Mikołajki (in Polish) will become more widely known.

Today the community organization Diversity Voice who are all about ‘bringing communities together’ ran their own St Nicks event at Victoria Community Centre, where they are based, and the event was extremely well attended by entire families of migrant workers and supported by community leaders and workers keen to help with integration including in the workplace-where Sam Quigley from Unite the Union brought his specialist advice, the cultural realm where Phil Shepherd from Somerset Film and Video specialised and from local government Ian Dyer (Sedgemoor District) and Brian Smedley (Bridgwater Town).

Breaking down barriers of misunderstanding

A short film showed some of the problems faced by migrant workers and families in Britain, from suspicious landlords who seemed to expect them to accept poor standards and short term tenancies, when in fact most were seeking a good quality of life for their families,  to work colleagues who had maybe moved from other parts of the UK to find work yet couldn’t accept that people around Europe might also be able to do that.

You can see the film here.

Sam Quigley from Unite the Union outlined how important it was for British and Migrant workers to join Trades Unions and listed the benefits that came from this and how unity could be achieved through sharing solutions to the common problems faced in the workplace. To find out more about UNITE click here.

To find more about Diversity Voice go to their website here.