Irena Sendler Award‘For Repairing The World’HOW CAN YOU HELP?

To teachers, our Award is not just an accomplishment, but moreimportantly a reassu-rance that their efforts, no matter how unpopular

and strenuous, are in fact meaningful and needed. Together they realize howmuch they can do as those who repair the world.

By donating to Irena Sendler Award Fund, you participate in our shared causeof ‘multiplying the amount of good in the world’ that Irena Sendler referred to in

2006. You support teachers who raise new generations of open-minded, brave andempathetic people who take responsibility for others – both locally and globally.

Please donate:

FUNDACJA CENTRUM EDUKACJI OBYWATELSKIEJul. Noakowskiego 10, 00-666 Warszawa

Bank Zachodni WBK S.A., IX Oddział w WarszawieIBAN (EUR): PL41109018830000000118630249IBAN (USD): PL85109018830000000121811639

Swift: WBKPPLPPwith the annotation ‘Irena Sendler Award’

www.sendler.ceo.org.pl

Joanna Kluzik-RostkowskaMinister of National Education (2015)

Jakub Niewiński2015 Laureate

How Laureates Repair the World

DEDICATION AND EMPATHY

Marina Hulia– TEACHING REFUGEES AT THE BORDER

In the face of so called migration crisis in Europe, despite the indifference of political par-ties and general public Marina decided to take action. She runs an improvised, democraticschool at the railway station in Brzesc. At the border between Poland and Belarus, wherehundreds of refugees fleeing Chechenia are waiting to be allowed to cross the border,Chechen children together with Marina learn Polish, Chechen and Russian, they sing songs,visit close-by parks and museums.

PERSISTENCE AND BRAVERY

Marzanna Pogorzelska– THE FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUALITY

Marzanna is an English teacher from Kędzierzyn-Koźle and a coordinator of a local AmnestyInternational group operating in the school. Along with her students she organizes hap-penings and public events that raise awareness about equal rights and opportunities formen and women, as well as support the LGBTQ cause. In 2007, when former minister ofeducation banned anti-homophobic teaching materials from schools, she send him a letterof self-denunciation, stating that she will continue to stand up for equal rights in an act ofcivil disobedience.

REMEMBRANCE AND DIVERSITY

Małgorzata Rusiłowicz– EXPANDING THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY

Małgorzata works in a small town of Bialostoczek, at the crossroads of Polish, Belarussian,Jewish, Roma and Tatar culture. She teaches her students about the local ethnic andreligious diversity in the present times, giving voice to these minorities in a societywidely considered as homogenous. Together with her students she also makes efforts tobring back the memory of Shoah in the region and remember the minority communitiesdestroyed in the Holocaust and WWII.

During the first Award ceremony Irena Sendler stressed that the essence of repairingthe world lays in the constant effort to widen the circle of good in the world filled withprejudice, discrimination and injustice. The work of the awarded teachers and theirstudents is exactly what Irena Sendler described – sharing and multiplying the amountof good in the world.

I consider ‘repairing the world’, damaged by hatred towards Others, to be my duty. I try to fulfill it every day as a teacher and as a person. Irena Sendler Award is so much morethan just a strong point in my curriculum vitae. It is Ms Sendler calling me by name, urging me to be do what I do even more efficiently. To keep encouraging students to take action for a society free of all kinds of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and homopho-bia.

Mission of the AwardThe purpose of the Irena Sendler Award ‘For Repairing the World’ is to support teacherswho teach their students in the spirit of tolerance and respect for others, who play anactive role in their school and local community, and most importantly, who inspire youngpeople to take action, combat prejudice and promote human rights.

The Award honors Irena Sendler, Polish social worker who saved lives of 2,500 Jewishchildren during the Second World War, and to promote values which were essential to herwhole life. In 2006, just two years before her death, Irena Sendler personally chose the firstlaureates, Robert Szuchta and Norman Conard. Since then, Center for Citizenship Education runs the program in cooperation with the Association ‘Children of the Holocaust’.

Every year, the Board awards teachers whose educational efforts merge into Irena Sendler’sliving monument. The laureate of the Award receives 15 000 PLN.