Polish teen from Merthyr up for national police award
A teenage Polish girl living in Merthyr Tydfil has been commended for her contribution to policing and has been shortlisted for one of Britain’s most prestigious policing awards.
Alicja Sadkiewicz has been a police youth volunteer for over two years with South Wales Police and will attend the Lord Ferrers Awards in London next week.
Fourteen year-old Alicja was nominated for Volunteer Police Cadet Award by pc Angela Rogers, a schools liaison officer based Merthyr Tydfil, who met Alicja when she was in primary school.
At just seven years-old, a long time before she became a Police Youth Volunteer, Alicja volunteered to translate for Angela while she gave talks on important issues such as anti-social behaviour, substances and alcohol abuse and personal safety.
Angela said: “It’s in Alicja’s nature to help others – right from the start she was translating for me so that her Polish friends – who could not speak English – could understand what I was telling them and Alicja continues to translate for me even to this day.”
Alicja also volunteers to translate for other officers while they carry out visits to Polish communities, and carried out other duties to support policing at community events. She dedicates at least two hours a week to being a Police Youth Volunteer.
Alicja has been living in Merthyr Tydfil for eight years now and her family have settled in the Galon Uchaf area, but she is passionate about her heritage.
Recently, she became a Holocaust Youth Champion and completed the Holocaust Memorial Trust challenge. She went to her old primary school to tell the story of a Polish survivor of the Holocaust highlighting the importance of equality and peace.
She was commended at Merthyr Police Station recently by Chief Superintendent Belinda Davies, who said: “It was fantastic to meet Alicja recently – she is a credit to her family and a fabulous role model to her peers. I know from speaking to her that she has aspirations to become a police officer herself, and I’m sure that there would be a job waiting for her should her determination and her instinct to help others remain with her, which I am sure it will.”
She has been shortlisted for the Volunteer Police Cadets Award category of the Lord Ferrers Awards 2018 and has become the first ever South Wales Police affiliated finalist. On Tuesday, 16 October, accompanied by her family and Assistant Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan, she will attend the much awaited awards ceremony in London.
Watch this space..
