Ewa Fenn fled Poland in 1981 as a refugee and is a recent recipient of a medal from the Polish government.

Having lived in Tauranga since 1985, Ewa is vice-president of the Polish Community Trust Bay of Plenty and was presented the medal on November 6, as part of celebrations for the 150th Anniversary of Polish Immigration to New Zealand.

She was presented the medal by New Zealand's Polish Ambassador Grzegorz Kowal, alongside Eva Niedzielski who is treasurer of the Polish Community Trust BOP.

'The medal is for people who have done work promoting the Polish culture,” says Ewa. 'It's recognition that the work is being done here and the Polish community is being visible here too because there's not many of us – there's about 100 Polish people in Tauranga.”

Ewa is a former president of Multicultural Tauranga and has been heavily involved in sharing Polish culture to the community for years. 'We've done several events for this community and for the promotion of the Polish culture in the general public here.”

Receiving the medal, Ewa says: '[The feeling] was verging on bizarre because the government before where I escaped from gave me no award for being here and doing a good job – plus I didn't expect to be awarded for what I was doing because I was just helping.”

During the 1980s Poland was known as the Polish People's Republic and was going through economic crisis and labour unrest. 'I left Poland in 1981 and it was a different government obviously, a different regime and the situation has changed a lot since then.”

Despite fleeing her homeland, Ewa is proud of her Polish identity. 'I went to Poland in May this year and it's just incredible…lots of people have gone to Europe but miss seeing Poland…Poland is beautiful.”