WARSAW — Riza, 45, is dressed elegantly in a knee-length black fur coat and a pair of leather trousers. She wears a copper shade of lipstick and neatly pinned hair. “Back in the Philippines we are heroes, women of success,” she says. “Children are grateful for what we do for them.”
I meet Riza in front of the Warsaw Immaculate Conception Chapel. The Sunday mass has just ended, and she is among the 20 women gathered around Sister Yolanda, who like them is a Filipina.
“I nurse this girls club,” says the nun, who has lived in Warsaw for the last three years and helps bind together this group of women from the Philippines.
Filipino immigration to Poland started 12 years ago and continues today as more Filipinos try to unlock a better future for their families back home by working in this country.
After decades of similar emigration to the U.S., Asia and Western Europe, Filipino immigration to Poland started 12 years ago, when one of the Polish banks recruited accountants and IT specialists from the islands country. As time passed by, some of them sent their children to the American School of Warsaw and settled down. Soon after, chauffeurs, cooks and cleaning personnel for a few diplomatic sites in Warsaw joined the community. Today, it counts about 500 people, including the Filipino wives of Polish citizens, seasonal workers, nannies and household helpers.
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Article in Gazeta Wyborcza
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