POLcast

Agnieszka Dydycz tells her story of the very beginning of capitalism in Poland and her role in creating capital markets at the national level, her interactions with the biggest institutional global investors, and then... her life as a writer and her charity work.

Adela Walczak lives in Poland, a country without any curling traditions and without any curling facilities. Until now, because Adela decided to build a world class curling club in her home town Łódź, in the centre of Poland. And she did!

Kaszuby, an area in northern Ontario, about 200 kilometres west of Ottawa, named after the part of northern Poland from which the first settlers came, is the site of the first Polish settlement in Canada.

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• Great Poles - Marian Smoluchowski

• Smacznego! Eating Polish - sorrel soup

Poland’s connections with many geographically distant countries are a fascinating topic. This story of a famous pre-war Polish painter whose art decorates many palaces in India is told by a Canadian POLcast listener born in India. He had just come back to Canada after visiting his home country and was fascinated with artist Stefan Norblin’s contribution to India’s culture.

Basia lives in a small town in Ontario. On a line between two trees in front of her house she hangs donated winter clothes as well as hats and scarves she and her daughter make. They are free for anyone who needs them. 

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Imagine that you go to a store and want to buy something special as a gift – well, you cannot because it’s simply not available. 99.9 per cent of people would simply leave saying: “too bad. I wish they produced it” and go buy something else. But not Adam Szymkow…

This year for the 27th time, Poland’s largest fundraising campaign – the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, which collects money for medical equipment for Polish paediatric hospitals – has “played” in Poland and dozens of countries, including Canada. Every year the fundraising drive ends in a grand finale concert – ours was held at the Fregata Restaurant in Mississauga.

• Great Poles – Zbigniew Religa, a legendary cardiologist

• Smacznego! Eating Polish – bigos

This is our special Christmas Episode so we would like to wish you

For six years Ted Dawson has travelled every fall to rural Tanzania, an area next door to Kilimanjaro, to help local people build and modernize infrastructure. In November, for the first time, he took with him Ewa Henry, a Polish Canadian artist, who opened an art program there, empowering local youth and help them get some income.

What I really love is when fascinating stories grow by getting extensions and often new lives. Here is one such story. Ana Bayat, a multilingual actress from San Francisco, met and heard the music and the story of Canadian jazz musician Ron Davis at the Edinburgh's Fringe Festival. It's the story of how Ron, a child of Holocaust survivors, discovered that his mother Alicja was right about his grandfather's pre-war past in Warsaw immortalized in a famous song "Bal na Gnojnej" a.k.a. "Bal u Grubego Jośka". Now Ana is writing a play about Ron's mother Alicja.

• Money must not prevent anyone from experiencing the shows

Arthur Wachnik, actor, musician, singer, is the artistic director of an over 3000-seat venue - Christian Performing Arts Centre in Toronto. We talk about this great centre, its mission and its recent brand new show The Nativity Musical.

• Great Poles - Janusz Korczak

• Smacznego! Eating Polish  - yummy Christmas traditions

We are releasing this episode on a very special day - today, on 11 November 2018, Poland and Poles around the world are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining its independence.

After 123 years of partitions, on 11 November 1918, the dream of generations of Poles came true: the Polish state was reborn and Poland reappeared on the maps of Europe.

Special gift to Poland on its 100th anniversary of independence

• Celebrating Poland - top young Polish writers in Toronto

• Love for Polish cuisine - comfort food with multiple personalities

In this episode you will hear:

• It starts with a bang - Scotland and Poland

• EKRAN - 10 years of Polish film in Toronto

• Great Poles - Henryk Sienkiewicz

• Smacznego! Eating Polish  - halusky

• Poles and Jews meet through their common music

Olga Avigail Mieleszczuk, born in Poland, is a singer, accordion player and researcher of Eastern European musical folklore. Since the very beginning of her creative work, she has been focusing on Jewish music of Ashkenazi roots. She converted into Judaism and now lives and works in Jerusalem. She performed at Toronto’s Lula Lounge at the 2018 Ashkenaz Festival with her three Polish musicians.

• The Things of Warsaw

When I was in Poland in June, I attended the official opening of the Museum of Warsaw, also referred to as the Museum of Things, located in a number of historic buildings in the Old Town Market Square.

• From law and math to the cutting-edge computing technology

Bohr Technology Inc., based in Warsaw, works on creative ideas behind the new revolutionary quantum computers, which in the next 5 years will probably start replacing classic computers for the purpose of solving optimisation problems. Witold Kowalczyk and Przemyslaw Chojecki are the founders and the brains behind this innovative startup company.

• The statue of Fahrenheit in Gdansk

• Smacznego! Eating Polish – peach turnovers

• We leave you with “Rebecca” sung by Olga Mieleszczuk

• A childhood dream that came true

Maple syrup, Leonard Cohen, hockey – these are Canadian icons. There is one more, very special – Anne of Green Gables, the red-haired orphan whose life in Avonlea in Prince Edward Island was described by author Lucy Maud Montgomery. Bernadeta Milewski is a Pole living in the US, whose life has been influenced by Anne of Green Gables in many ways.

• The money is on the road – a study of immorality

After the successul premiere of hs feature debut “22 Chaser”, we talk to Polish Canadian filmmaker – Rafal Sokolowski, an award-winning film and theatre director whose short films have been shown worldwide.

• White and red hearts from Chicago

The Jeopardy-style 2nd annual contest tests elementary and high school students of Polish language schools in Canada and the US on their knowledge about Poland – its history, geography, culture, traditions (and this year also sports) – all in Polish.

• Great Poles – about themselves and their recent accoplishments and projects

• Smacznego! Eating Polish – Polish sauces

This is a special episode of POLcast, recorded during my visit to Poland in June, where Margaret received the prestigious journalistic Maciej Plazynski Award for her work on POLcast.

In this episode you will hear:

• The inspiring time at the steering wheel

• Helping the talented Polish teenagers study abroad

• The freedom that comes at a price

• “The best Canadian thriller of 2018”?

Also in this episode:

• Some sounds of Warsaw:

In this episode:

Eva Henry (Toronto) is an artist and Dorota Skowrońska Krawczyk(California) is a scientist who work together to create VISIONS.

Monika Grzelak, a photographer from Toronto, drove across Canada to find and photograph couples in love.

There are special teachers - Marcin Zarod is one of them.

• Coś z Polski