A weekly newspaper in Yorkshire has recruited an East European correspondent to make sure their content is not lost in translation for their Polish readers.
The Johnston Press-owned Selby Times has enlisted the services of 56-year-old Polish journalist Mira Lowery who translates stories from English into Polish for Selby’s 500-strong Polish community and creates audio files on the paper’s website.
She said: ‘I take important parts of the paper like council decisions, jobs, what’s on and entertainment and summarise in Polish for people who don’t understand English too well or not at all.”
Lowery has also been giving Polish readers some insight into English traditions such as Halloween and Bonfire Night.
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Born in Gdansk, she studied English at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and spent two years in England, where she studied languages at colleges in London and Birmingham.
Mira, who works as dispensing assistant at Specsavers in Gowthorpe, moved to Selby in 1990 and first began translating when she read Beatrix Potter books to her son Pawel Wojs.
Times editor Chris Page said the scheme had been well-received in the Yorkshire Weekly News Group and that local Poles had already written letters, in broken English, to show their appreciation.
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He said: ‘As soon as we get the paper, she translates the stories that most affect the Polish community. It’s a way of reaching a new audience – we have got a least 500 Polish people which for a small market town is a lot.’
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