Poland’s first “happy to chat” bench opens to tackle loneliness after pandemic

Poland’s first “happy to chat” bench (gaduławka), which encourages strangers to sit and talk with one another, has opened in Kraków. The initiative is intended to tackle loneliness and rebuild a sense of community as people emerge from the pandemic.

The idea is modelled on one first created in the UK by Allison Owen-Jones when she spotted an elderly man sitting on his own on a park bench. After she placed “happy to chat” cards on benches around Cardiff, dedicated benches were then installed. The initiative has been copied in Canada, the US, Australia, Ukraine and Switzerland.

Owen-Jones was present to launch the first such bench in Poland, which she had inspired when giving a talk to the city’s TEDxKazimierz group last year. It is being hosted by Kraków’s Jewish Community Centre (JCC) and supported by municipal authorities, who called on residents to “come, sit, chat”.

“Gaduławka is a bench that encourages conversation,” Richard Lucas, a British entrepreneur and curator of TEDxKazimierz, told Gazeta Krakowska. “Its goal is to fight loneliness and rebuild a sense of community among people. These benches cost little but have an incredibly positive impact on society.”

Lucas’s initiative to launch the bench was supported by members of the Open Coffee Youth group and funded by Polish architecture company Fulco. It was Fulco’s senior marketing specialist, Krzysztof Sabuda, who came up with the Polish name gaduławka, which means “chatbench”.

“After such a long time of separation and social distancing, we hope that this project will become another motivation for making new friends in a time when open dialogue is becoming more and more important,” said Jonathan Ornstein, executive director of the JCC, which is located in Kraków’s former Jewish district of Kazimierz.

The bench, which has been installed in the JCC’s garden and is open to the public, features instructions on the side in Polish, English and Hebrew.

Its installation follows the release of a report on loneliness in Poland by the Szlachetna Paczka charity, which revealed increasing levels of social isolation. One in three people over the age of 75 lives alone, and people in that age group were found to have very low levels of social contact compared to others.

But the report also highlighted that loneliness affects other age groups, with social isolation and poor mental health exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Szlachetna Paczka noted that, in the last year, one in four Poles reported experiencing a deterioration in mood. It also found that as many as 2.5 million parents – 85% of them women – look after their children alone.

In recent years, a variety of schemes have been launched in Poland to try to tackle loneliness. Szlachetna Paczka created a “Good Words” (Dobre Słowa) telephone line to provide lonely older people with expert support.

A separate project, “Talking Telephone” (Telefon Pogadania), was set up in April last year, allowing those feeling lonely to call in and have a conversation with volunteers.

Note: Jonathan Ornstein is a member of the Notes from Poland foundation’s oversight board.

Main image credit: Jakub Wlodek / Agencja Gazeta

Juliette Bretan

Juliette Bretan is a freelance journalist covering Polish and Eastern European current affairs and culture. Her work has featured on the BBC World Service, and in CityMetric, The Independent, Ozy, New Eastern Europe and Culture.pl.