This Easter, Magdalena Zynel and her family will be painting and decorating hard-boiled eggs – followed by a cracker of a competition!
“A Polish tradition is to put the decorated eggs in a basket,” explains Magdalena. “Then we each choose one and have a friendly match where we try to crack each other’s eggshells. It’s always great fun and the kids especially love it.”
Another of the traditions the Polish-born and raised Magdalena adheres to, is celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve with a banquet of 12 beautifully cooked vegetarian dishes.
The Lifestyle Assistant at Uniting AgeWell Manor Lakes Community knows the importance of fun. It’s part of her role in organising daily activities and outings for the residents she cares for.
“I love making older people happy,” she says. “It gives me great joy to make them smile and make their day more enjoyable.”
Magdalena trained in massage therapy in Poland and moved to London at the age of 20. She quickly learned how to speak English and spent 10 years there, running a café on a construction site. She met her husband, Jaya, an Aussie IT expert who was also working in London at the time.
“I told Jaya I would come to Australia with him only if I could visit my family back in Poland every year,” she says. Her parents live on the Polish border, very close to Belarus, and she worries about their safety.
They moved to Hoppers Crossing in 2016 and two sons later, Magdalena started looking around for a new career.
“I’d been watching the news on TV a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I noticed a couple of articles on how it was impacting people in aged care. So, I started thinking about how I could make a difference to the lives of older people and looked at careers in aged care.”
With aged care studies under her belt, Magdalena started work at Manor Lakes on a student placement – and the rest is history. Her positive energy, compassion and care won everyone over, she was offered a full-time role, and one day aims to become a Lifestyle Coordinator.
She feels right at home and often laughs that the three-person Manor Lakes Lifestyle Team is a cultural melting pot representing also India and the Philippines.
During Harmony Week from 17- 23 March, we recognise staff, like Magdalena, who come from many varied cultural backgrounds and who we celebrate as part of our Uniting AgeWell family. Inclusion is one of our five values – the others are kindness, respect, integrity and innovation – that shape and underpin everything that we do.
Learn more about Harmony Week