To be included among the candidates for the Social Council of Culture of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, one had to have a record of achievement and recommendations.

– I received as many as three recommendations, for which I am extremely grateful, because I asked people who know my work for culture in the region and whom I greatly value for their work – says Grażyna Hanaf. – Recommendations were written for me by PCEiKK director Katarzyna Reguła, with whom I worked and created the still-operating anti-cyberbullying project for young people “How Does Hate Work?”, director and resident of Bolesławiec Monika Jordan-Młodzianowska, and Dr Anita Wincencjusz–Patyna, an assistant professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław and the rector’s representative for preventing discrimination and ensuring equal treatment. Many people important to me voted. I sincerely thank each of them – Hanaf adds.

The candidate received 56 votes, placing her in the middle of the field. More than 130 votes were needed to get onto the Council.

– This was a completely new project for me. I had never previously taken part in any elections, not even elections to a council where the role is symbolic and unpaid – says Grażyna Hanaf. – What did not work? I did not perform well in the campaign, because I did too little and reached too few people. I did not want to involve the istotne.pl portal in the campaign. It was my personal project, and I felt that doing so would be unfair to the other candidates. Now I regret it; it is possible that our huge audience would have allowed me to run a better campaign. I focused on personal contact. I also wanted to be sure that a given person or community saw me as a representative – adds the journalist.

Grażyna Hanaf viewed with pity the mockery of her candidacy on the portal run by Marcin Marczewski.

– I have enemies, and Mr Marcin has made no secret of his dislike of me for years – says the journalist. – This time, too, he displayed a trait attributed to the character of Poles: envy. I look with pity at his delight in the failure that, in his view, befell a woman from Bolesławiec. We all know this emotion of easing our own failures by seeing something go wrong for a neighbour: their car broke down, they were dismissed from work or their wife cheated on them. Only one thing does not fit here. Mr Marcin Marczewski is not my neighbour. He has lived and worked in Kraków for years, and his only links to Bolesławiec are a portal co-run by his father and his hobby: journalism. Where does this fierce hostility towards people working for the city come from? Perhaps it is some wound hidden for years, with which I have nothing to do – Grażyna Hanaf adds.

Below we present a description of Grażyna Hanaf’s work for the development of culture in Bolesławiec County.

Grażyna Hanaf: art historian, journalist and writer. President of the boleslawianie.eu association, organiser of her own workshops for children, “How Does Hate Work?”, and the Glina Show (Gliniada) ceramics festival.

Author of three fairy tales (Garbuska, Dziewczynka-skrzynka and Zaginieni rodzice) and two novels (Joachim and Joachim Zemsta), as well as Polish- and French-language travel guides to Morocco, Normandy and Provence (published by ExpressMap).

  • In 2005, I created and ran film and educational projects for young people; in 2006, I founded a Film Discussion Club in Bolesławiec. In 2005–2006, I was a visual arts instructor and cultural animator at BOK Bolesławiec, as well as a speaker for New Horizons of Film Education (2008–2015).
  • Since 2018, I have been president of the “boleslawianie.eu” association. As part of the association, I have created: in 2018, the “Even a Female Leader Is Afraid” workshop for women, funded by a Parisbas grant.
  • 2018–2019: workshops with fairy tales, Fairy-Tale Therapy: lectures and workshops in dozens of schools and libraries across Poland; 2018–2024: the educational anti-cyberbullying programme “How Does Hate Work?”. Teachers from all over Poland use my project.
  • 2018–2024: organisation of the Glina Show (Gliniada) festival, the artistic component of Poland’s largest unique ceramics fair, consisting of art workshops, painting with clay slip, fire-walking workshops, workshops on shaping clay on traditional pottery wheels, activities for the youngest children in special pools filled with clay slip, a Glinolud procession and ceramic body painting: painting models with motifs seen on Bolesławiec ceramics, a project carried out with Bolesławiec ceramic producers, including the largest one, Ceramika Artystyczna Spółdzielnia Rękodzieła Artystycznego.
  • 2023: organisation of a panel for teachers from Bolesławiec County, “Health and protection of the rights of children excluded from peer groups, including children and young people with a minority sexual orientation”, funded by a grant from the Wolontariat Równości Foundation.
  • 2023: organisation of the First Bolesławiec Equality March.
  • 2024: organisation of the 2nd Equality March during the Bolesławiec Ceramics Festival.