Mikołaj Wolanin

In 2019, Mikołaj launched his Foundation for Student Rights, which has now been active for five years and has accomplished a huge amount in its mission to advocate for students. Every year, Mikołaj’s Foundation receives hundreds of requests for legal help from students all over Poland, and in partnership with the City Hall of Warsaw it has organised events to offer legal consultations for those who want to speak to someone face to face. Plans are already underway to organise further versions of these events in other Polish cities. 

As a further part of its work, the Foundation also aims to educate students and the public on their rights through a variety of media and events. Mikołaj has written two books on the topic – the first books on the Polish market that dealt clearly with the rights and duties of students. The Foundation also organises the Student Rights Knowledge National Olympiad every year, with over 700 pupils entering the most recent event. The Olympiad helps to educate students about their rights – as well as human rights and children’s rights more generally – and is funded by a number of Polish legal institutions alongside the European Commission. Additionally, the Foundation delivers a number of presentations and lectures to groups on the rights and duties of students – mainly at the invitation of young people, but also recently to institutions such as the Polish Ombudsman for Children.  

Campaigning for student welfare is another important part of the Foundation’s activity. Most recently, it published a civic bill arguing for the provision of a psychologist in every school. At the time the bill was written, psychologists were only present in about 50 per cent of Polish schools – and although the bill did not collect the required 100,000 signatures, it successfully introduced the topic into the media conversation. Since then, the Ministry of Education has allocated significant funds to schools for this purpose, and the availability of psychologists in schools has increased. 

Mikołaj regularly acts as an expert on student rights and gives interviews to media channels such as Reuters, TVN24, Polsat News, Radio France International, Newsweek, Onet, and Gazeta Wyborcza. He has also spoken on the subject of Education Law several times in the Polish Parliament, and given conference speeches at institutions such as Queen's University Belfast, University of Central Lancashire, University of Durham, University of Portsmouth, UiT The Arctic University of Tromsø, University of Hasselt, University of Sibiu, and the University of Texas in Austin. If Mikołaj wins the Global Student Prize, he would like to use a large part of the funds to invest in the education of his peers – setting up a mentoring programme to educate young leaders and advocates, as well as attracting financial sponsors who would help the programme expand globally.