Umbrella academy helps youngsters from a range of backgrounds learn about their heritage

Langley Primary School in Oldbury has become the home of the Migrant Integration & Language Academy CIC (MILA), an academy which champions the diversity of the Central and Eastern European community throughout Birmingham and the Black Country.

The academy brings together schools teaching Polish, Romanian and Ukrainian communities under one umbrella group and works to help youngsters living away from their home countries to remember the traditions and languages of those countries.

The organisation's dedication to inclusivity is manifested in its extensive outreach efforts, reaching beyond Ukrainian refugees to encompass individuals from all Central and Eastern European backgrounds.

Serving as a bridge, MILA nurtures a sense of belonging within the varied tapestry of the Central and Eastern European community, where diverse cultures, traditions, and languages converge towards common goals of integration, learning, and connection.

This work is made possible by a team of volunteers and directors, including Patrycja Hnat and Irina Oshenye, who give up their time every Saturday morning to teach classes and ensure the smooth running and operation of the school.

Irina Oshenye is also head of the Ukrainian school and said the idea of the school, which started in 2022 after the region received an influx of people escaping the war in Ukraine, was to help preserve the culture of where they had come from and keep that link.

She said: "When the refugees started arriving from Ukraine, they thought it would be temporary and they would be back home in a few weeks or months and they didn't know that it would be so long before they could go back.

"They found themselves struggling in a new country, learning a new language and, after a year, they had adapted to the situation and would likely be here for longer, so they wanted to preserve their language and culture as their children had switched to English and Ukrainian was no longer their main language.

"They wanted to preserve that language and culture, so demand for the supplementary school started growing and what's important about the school is that it helps people realise they are not alone, while also sharing this culture and educating the local community about this small, new and rising community and what their traditions are."

Ms Oshenye said the school had started with two students, but now had around 27 registered students, with one family saying it had been a lifeline for them.

The family said: "We arrived in the UK, fleeing the war in Ukraine, and everything felt overwhelming.

"Adapting to a new country, a new language, and a new culture was challenging. MILA CIC became our lifeline.

"The Saturday supplementary school has not only helped our children settle into their new schools but also provided a safe space where they can enjoy contact with peers and communicate in their mother tongue."

Another school which has offered community support and a place for children to learn about their heritage is the Romanian Saturday School 'Nicolae Iorga Birmingham' offering an integrated method of teaching the Romanian language to children aged between four and 16 years old.

Run by Mariana Plamadeala and Laura Elena Suna, the school provides a mixture of holistic education, following the principles of the British school system, but also looks to Romanian core values from the teachings of Nicolae Iorga, a Romanian historian and former prime minister.

Ms Plamadeala said the school had started out in 2020 with eight pupils and now had as many as 35 across the age groups.

She said: "We are sharing our fundamental cultural values that are being passed down from our grandparents to our parents to ourselves, which is of being together, of sharing food, of understanding our religion and all the celebrations we have.

"We are able to celebrate our Romanian culture, as well as Moldovan, as we speak the same language and while, politically, we are separated, we all feel the same way.

"We have a lot of students and they're not always the same people as some leave and some come in, but I think that we have 80 per cent of the same children and we see great progress with them."

Ms Suna said she was honoured to have been part of the school since it opened and said the curriculum was exciting and interesting.

She said: "We're trying to teach the children elements of language and cultural civilization, so we sing songs and dance as much as possible and we teach cooking, so what we can cook here, we will cook.

"We also look at history and geography and traditions and participate in festivals, so we promote our culture as much as we can."

The third school within MILA is the Polish Saturday Supplementary School, which is run by the European's Welfare Association (EWA), an organisation working to support education and welfare in the Polish community.

The school first started in Walsall in 2009, with EWA founder Elizabeth Kardynal saying it had been about keeping a sense of identity with Poland while living in the UK.

She said: "We've got a long-standing presence of Polish diaspora in the UK and it was one of those things as a migrant that you want to be perceived as part of the wider community, but also be able to keep your own identity.

"I was the mum who took a son to a school and what I wanted to do is give those children the best chance of getting a proper education in the Polish language and use my profession as a qualified teacher here in the UK.

"We currently have around 300 children on our register and we teach Polish language with elements of Polish history, geography, history, traditions, culture and everything else and we also want to encourage other schools in the region to partner with us and we can offer support and help."

To find out more about the schools and about MILA, go to facebook.com/mila.school.