Her daughter collided with the Polish kindergarten. So she founded her own, and now has several of them - the history of a Ukrainian woman in Poland

5 years ago Anna Chimchuk moved with her husband and two young daughters from Odessa to Warsaw. In Ukraine, Anna was a banking analyst, doctor of science, lecturer at the university. In Poland, she became the owner of a network of non-public kindergartens ULIK . As he claims, he will never forget about the difficulties that the family has to go through.

Note: The cycle " from personal experience " is the format of the blog Spider's Web Ukraina, under which we show the stories of Ukrainians in Poland. We want to bring closer the profiles of people who managed to develop their careers in Poland, run their own businesses, etc. These materials are based on long conversations with our heroes. In the texts from this series, we give our interlocutors a voice - they tell their story themselves.

Moving to Poland was the decision of my husband, because he got an interesting job offer here. We are such a family that we do not move one by one, so we all went together. We did not know how long we would stay in Poland. We approached it rather as an opportunity to learn something new or gain new experiences. It seems to me that a man who survived immigration, even if after some time returns home, has something behind him that no one else can take away from him. These are new skills, knowledge and experience. When you move, you encounter life situations that would normally never come to your mind. These situations can not break a human being, but they definitely tempered.

Difficulties awaited us where we did not expect them.

During the move, we were very worried about the older daughter. She was supposed to go to the first class. For us it was an important event that we experienced in a completely different country. I was not worried about my younger daughter. It turned out that the older daughter had a great integration, while the younger one had problems.

At the very beginning I did not deal with the issue of health, we paid more attention to accommodation and school selection. However, in the first week after arriving in Warsaw, we suddenly had to turn to the doctor with the child.

Housing conditions were also different than we planned. As far-sighted parents, we came to Warsaw, we looked at the flat, we signed the contract. It seemed to us that we only need to move and we will live normally. However, everything went wrong, we changed the apartment several times until we finally found one where we have already settled for a long time. We could not predict all these things, it was hard, especially with two children in their arms. No friends, no friends, just nobody to help.

Learning the language before moving is my first advice I give.

The decision to move was unexpected, so there was little time to learn a language. As soon as I imagined that my child would go to the first grade, and I would not be able to ask a teacher how she was doing, I immediately ran to a Polish language course. When we moved to Poland, I spoke Polish at a basic level.

It seems to me that it is very important. In fact, I do not understand how one can move to another country without being able to say a word in a given language. When somebody asks me for advice or a hint, I say: try to learn the language, how long do you manage, how much you can, but before moving.

The daughter went to first class in Poland. At the end of September, a parents' meeting took place, where one had to choose a three-parent who would deal with the affairs of the class. Nobody wanted to, everyone was sitting quietly. I had no doubt that in Odessa I would be in such three, but it was harder in Poland, I did not know much about Poland. "But I know a bit," I thought, I raised my hand and said that if it did not bother anyone, then I could be in the three. Of course, nobody would mind, two parents came forward immediately. Later we became very friends with them. When you move, communication with new people is very important, also because of language learning.

When we were looking for a school for an older daughter, there were also those who reacted very gruffly.

We were looking for a school in the following way: we came to Warsaw, we went to different schools and asked who would receive us. I more or less imagined what problems a child might have. I came to school and I explained that the child does not speak Polish yet, but will learn, I was ready to pay for additional classes to improve my language. In some schools the reaction was very negative.

However, in the school where we finally sent our daughter, a very nice lady in the secretariat said: "Yes, everything is included in our program. If we have a child who does not speak Polish, we assign him additional hours to learn the language. " I must say that Polish schools now have much more experience working with children from outside Poland than 5 years ago.

It was a sports school, so they asked me if my child could swim? I replied that, of course, we had moved from Odessa, from the sea. You had to pass the swimming test. The swimming test is to check whether the child is not afraid of water, swimming skills were not mandatory. Our daughter already knew how to swim a dog and won the hearts of all teachers.

For half a year, the younger daughter, with tears in her eyes, went to kindergarten, and every morning she said that she was dreaming of "my Odessa".

The younger daughter was three years old when we moved, so I did not anticipate any problems. If the older daughter in Ukraine left her friends and family, she was very well aware of this. However, with a three-year-old child - what problems can be? Where is my mother - there is a home there. My younger daughter has not managed to be friends with anyone yet. Neither in the park nor anywhere else. It was an absolute surprise to me that every morning she woke up and said: "Mother, do you know what I dreamed of today?" I asked, "what, honey?" And she said, "my Odessa." And it was like that every day.

Every day in the morning, with tears in our eyes, we went to kindergarten. At that time I did not work and I could sit with her at home, although I really wanted Tom to speak Polish. In the group in kindergarten she was the only child speaking in Russian. There was another Spanish-speaking boy, the rest were Poles themselves. All classes were held in Polish, all teachers spoke only Polish.

The little one cried for six months. It's a very long time. Although I brought her to kindergarten in the morning and picked up immediately after dinner. In spite of everything, the daughter went there only thanks to the promise that planes from heaven look and who goes to kindergarten, he will fly to Odessa. And she said: "Plane, look, I'm going, take me to Odessa."

Everyone says that the younger the child, the faster it adapts. And it came out completely the opposite, and I came to the following conclusion: every man, even a child is an individual and the children are also very difficult, the older daughter was also difficult, only she experienced it in her own way, she did not want us to worry, she tried to show that it is hard. The younger one was not able to hide her feelings, she showed openly what she really felt, in her example I saw how it really looks. Even if someone after the move says that everything is great, I know that the child suffers in its own way.

Everyone knows that the beginning of the adventure with kindergarten is always difficult, the child is difficult to accept that now I have to go somewhere every day, for example to work. Here, it is also necessary to add such detail that no one understands you either, and you do not understand anything, and you can not even express what your needs are.

Our daughter said the teacher: "I want to pee, I want to pee" (In Russian, the word pee sounds like - to write.) They gave her a pen, a pencil, a card and said: "Write a child, write, just do not cry." I have no pretensions to kindergarten, no one has hurt her, but it was very difficult though it seems that languages ​​are similar, but sometimes it is not difficult to find such unpleasant misunderstandings.

Thoughts to give up and return to Ukraine, I did not even allow myself.

It was very difficult, but we did not even consider going back home. We knew it would be difficult, and it turned out to be even harder than we thought, but neither in front of us nor in front of our children did we want to show that as soon as it gets hard, one can give up, give up and go home. We looked at it in such a way that we can always come back, but we will only come back when we want to. We will overcome all difficulties, we will deal with everything, and if we decide to come back later, we will come back. And only in this way.

The younger daughter felt better over time. There were two such landmark moments that I remember. In the kindergarten, Tom almost did not talk, so for the first three months some people thought she could not speak at all. From the words of the educators she simply sat and drew, did not take part in classes, nothing. Then she went to dinner and picked her up. That's how my daughter's day looked like in kindergarten.

I did not know if this was happening because it was only for classes during which everyone spoke Polish and did not know if it would ever change at all. And here one day, our older daughter came to visit her school friend, Polka. The girls played in the room and of course spoke Polish. All this time Tom, younger daughter, looked into them and also wanted to play with them. At some point, she came to them and began to speak Polish ... As I remember this moment today: I stood in the kitchen and cried softly. I do not even know whether it is from happiness or from relief that it is a step forward.

She took the next step a moment later. When my daughter woke up and asked me if I knew what she was dreaming about. I swear it was every morning and every morning I asked her, "what, honey?" Though I already knew the answer. And she said, "my Odessa and my Barbican." I was relieved: Almost six months later, Toma felt good and her friends came in. However, what we experienced is impossible to forget and it can not be said that it was not.

The idea to open a kindergarten in Poland is not even mine, but my husband.

It probably sounds quite strange, because usually such an idea comes from a woman, from a mother, and in our case - from a father. All these problems that we experienced with our younger daughter at some point led to the fact that my husband said that we need to open a kindergarten, where it will be easier for children of migrants to adapt. He told me not to approach it as a business, rather as a social project. We did not think then that we should or should earn money.

Such an approach at the very beginning helped a lot, having it in our heads, we managed to create a very good product. Initially, we implemented our plan simply for people, for children, for parents. And here it turned out that the client is following a good product.

Opening a kindergarten involves obtaining a number of different rights.

You can not just take and open a kindergarten. Each step carries responsibility because it is about children. So first, you had to find a place that met the requirements of various instances. Sanepid, fire brigade, education board - all have their own requirements, there are even requirements for the amount of air per child, that is, there must be special ventilation, special windows. In addition, it must be remembered that these requirements are changing, that's why our first and third rooms are different, because at that time the requirements have changed.

We were looking for the premises by ourselves, however, when you enter the ads pages, you meet with 95% offers are placed by agencies. Cooperation with an intermediary is very complicated and time-consuming, because they work very slowly. We want to see the place and make a decision, and the intermediary tells us that he will call back later, ask if the owner has nothing against the kindergarten there, maybe he will talk to neighbors, and it all takes a long time. As a result, fortunately, we were able to find the place directly from the owners, who turned out to be great people, and they really wanted the ULIK kindergarten to be created there. We have completed all paperwork within two days.

The second stage is not complicated, but it is very expensive - the purchase of special furniture and devices with certificates. These must be special materials: if they are carpets, then they must be fire-resistant, if furniture - only with certificates For children and young people. Such furniture from 30 to 100 percent. they are more expensive than usual, so this stage is actually very expensive.

The third stage. When the restaurant is ready, please invite appropriate people, inspectors who will check and say if everything is in order, or you need to make a change.

The search for staff lasted a long time, I already thought that something was wrong with me.

The fourth step is to find staff. I remember that at the beginning, when I had to find an employee for two months, I was conducting interviews, sometimes after 2-5 conversations during the day. After two months, I came home and told my husband that I think something is wrong with me, because no one suits me, and it must be about me, because it is impossible to find no one! But my husband calmed me down and literally the next day, when I opened another resume, I felt that something moved in me finally.

I called, I met this person and she was just amazing. Of all the educators, she made the best impression on me. Everyone, even those who have never worked with her, know about our Eve. She worked with us soon, because she went on maternity leave, but I remembered her very well, because Ewa could sense children, she could not only teach them something, but also find a different approach for everyone. Sing a song to someone, read a book to someone. She could be with them on one level, while not going down to their level, and maybe even better to say, rising to their level. Trump-girlfriend.

It was difficult to find Polish-speaking children to kindergarten, some parents, as soon as they heard my accent in the conversation, they gave up immediately.

The fifth stage is to find children - it turned out to be quite difficult. Because it turned out that we opened a kindergarten in November. Of course, from September all the children were already saved to kindergartens and it was difficult for us to find clients. It took us almost a year to fill the first branch, we needed 15 kids.

The first to come to us were Ukrainian- / Russian-speaking children, whose needs and problems I understood well. However, it was very important for me to encourage children from Polish-speaking homes to register. I know that those parents who come here for a long time want their children to speak Polish. I also wanted these children to speak Polish, but with as little stress as possible. If we do not have Polish-speaking children with us, then most likely Russian-speaking children will close in their Russian / Ukrainian circle.

At the beginning I was very worried that I speak Polish with accent, I answer phone calls. Polish parents immediately hear that Polish is not talking to them, or a woman from somewhere in Podkarpacie. Situations such that someone immediately hears the accent and resigns, happens so far. Nobody says it directly, but of course you can feel it. Such cases are single, but they are.

In the end, fortunately, we were able to find the first Polish-speaking children, then the grapevine started to work. We currently have 15 children in the first division, 20 in the first division, and 30 in the third one (two groups of 15 each). Roughly 50/50 Polish-language and non-Polish-speaking children.

The concept of the ULIK kindergarten

We wanted to create a good quality product for affordable money. Today, the nursery costs PLN 1100 / month plus PLN 14 / day.

One of the most specific services that our kindergarten offers is that we help children of immigrants, in particular Ukrainians, in adaptation. In every branch there is an educator who speaks three languages, the child comes and there is always someone who is responsible for adapting it, who tells the child during classes or other everyday matters. So these are people to whom children can turn in their native language and will be understood.

We also offer video monitoring in our facilities. So parents using the mobile application can always check what is happening in the kindergarten.

From February 2019, we have looted the license and implemented a mathematical program. This program does not make Einstein children, but helps to make friends with math, feel it, not be afraid of it and understand the basic mathematical concepts.

I see that in today's world of developing technologies, computer science, coding, even a humanist, it will not do without mathematics, because it is the basis of the foundations. I want to give children a base that will later help them in their lives.

Anyone who would like to open a business must reckon with the fact that money will not work on themselves.

We have to work a lot, including weekends, you can not get sick leave here. You are already responsible for the result. You are worried and you risk your own money. At least for the first few years, the demanding rhythm of work awaits the owner. Apparently in every business - the first year will certainly be difficult, and then it depends on the company and the ambition. We still work hard after four years because we are opening new branches of the ULIK kindergarten.

We spent about PLN 465 thousand for the opening of the first branch for 15 people. PLN from zero to the final result.

Now our further plans are related to the sale of the franchise.

We have our own registered brand, we have our own curriculum, the kindergarten work technology, so we decided to sell the franchise. I would like to develop through franchises, so that every branch has its own host, who would keep his finger on the pulse. For this, it would be good to open branches in other cities - Poznań, Wrocław, Kraków. I see big demand.

Currently, two people are interested in buying a franchise, both from Poland. I would like it to be Ukrainians, because these conditions, which we offer to foreign children, our children, this attitude to them, I would like it to remain. I do not know how much the Polish owner will be interested in it, and how it will take care of these issues. However, as far as the franchise is concerned, we are not in a hurry, nobody is chasing us either. For me, this is a very important question, whether such a man is serious or if he only wants to play in kindergarten, and he will also make us a brand.

Difficulties associated with the fact that I am a foreigner, are and will be, but this is not worth focusing on.

No doubt we are a little bit strangers here. I just would not want to concentrate on it. You have to understand that this is normal, everyone is different, after all we have actually come to a different country, indeed the greater part speaks with accent and even mistakes, it can really take someone's job, maybe business. Someone can treat it in this way and be dissatisfied with it.

When they checked our premises, one of the inspectors asked her to take her car from the office and bring her to kindergarten. When she got into the car - and then we still had Ukrainian license plates - she asked what are the strange tablets and whether we are from Ukraine. We answered that yes. Then the inspector said simply: "I do not like Ukrainians."

We're going, and I'm thinking what will happen now, how to react. However, although she was not nice to us, she did not recommend any corrections in the report and everything went well.

Such situations are really rare and the most important thing is not to focus on them. You can not give up and say, "This is the end, nobody likes us here, everyone is against us." Throw projects or blame someone for their failures and think that it's all because of the fact that Ukrainians do not like them here.

If anyone told me everything, how we lived through our first year, before moving, I would not move here. Seriously.

Have we really gone through all this? How did we manage? These questions are coming back. There were many mishaps. However, we went further, without blaming anybody, we were looking for new solutions.

At all meetings and during interviews, people want to hear the story of Cinderella, but there is no Cinderella story. I am sure that anyone who has achieved success in any field before he came to it has scored a number of mishaps and mistakes. It was just these people who raised themselves and walked on, did something, learned from their own mistakes, maybe they did not even learn, and sometimes they could repeat the same mistakes. Simply, when people are at business meetings or interviewing, they tell a story of success and you probably think that a man just got lucky, he just chose the right path, he risked - he risked it, but not once. And this road is difficult and bumpy. You need a lot and work hard before, during and after. Although the picture looks nice afterwards, Cinderella's story is not here.



Her daughter collided with the Polish kindergarten. So she founded her own, and now has several of them - the history of a Ukrainian woman in Poland

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