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Chapter 7 - “This Region Is Our Priority”: EU Subsidies and the Development of a Transnational Regional Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2017

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Summary

Joasia: Social Entrepreneur

Joasia says she became a school librarian by accident. The daughter of teachers, she had absolutely no interest in working in a school herself. Rather than going to a college-track lyceum, she decided to learn a trade at a technical high school. After graduation, though, with no chance of finding a job as a woodworker, she settled on a two-year program in library science. Through personal connections, she was hired by her former high school in the late 1990s, and she was still there when I visited in 2011. By then she had earned a master's degree by studying on weekends. A perpetual student, Joasia has received additional certificates in subjects like counseling and pedagogy. She regularly attends training sessions about various EU-sponsored programs, and has had some success applying for and receiving grants for her school. When we talked in 2005, Joasia and her husband had recently purchased a partially built home in her native village, and they were finishing it room by room, as funds and time allowed:

I still work in the school library in Lesko. And that's about it, though I also work on these EU-funded projects, which is interesting because I meet interesting people and develop my abilities. As my acquaintances expand, I have more possibilities to arrange all kinds of things. I even managed to find a job for my sister-in-law.

I think that what's improved is that people have become more resilient, more capable; maybe they know it's up to them to look after their own fate. That passage from one period to another was devastating for people who always felt the state took care of them. Suddenly there was unemployment, suddenly people had to knock on doors, do something by themselves, open their own business. There's a group of people who still can't deal with the fact that they have to manage on their own. They often fall into pathologies like alcoholism, because they have nothing to do.

And in our region? Maybe something is beginning to change. Maybe people are learning to get grants from the EU, and they're doing better. I see that farmers get subsidies for mowing their fields. But it's very hard to apply for anything, because obviously many farmers don't even have a secondary education, and often they're older.

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Being and Becoming European in Poland
European Integration and Self-Identity
, pp. 163 - 192
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2014

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