How Wioletta earned a fresh start in life

3:47am Wednesday 16th July 2008

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WIOLETTA Pazdanska spoke hardly any English when she moved to England five years ago.

Grinning from ear to ear, she now has a tale of hard work and success to tell.

Wioletta, 29, grew up in a poor family in Poland and found herself struggling to survive.

But survive she did. She ended up in Southend where she has been studying at the Central Hairdressing Academy in London Road since January.

Her hard work recently paid off, when she walked away as both regional and overall winner at the Wella Hairdressing Awards, 2008.

Behind Wioletta's winning smile is a tale of depression, bullying and life with an alcoholic father back in Poland.

"But I don't want people to feel sorry for me", she stressed.

"I want to send them a message that if there is something they really want, they can achieve it.

"I have gone through a lot in my life but still managed to achieve something.

"I have been working very hard to be where I am now and I did it because I really wanted this and I had people believing in me," she said.

Wioletta, of Bellevue Road, Southend, was so badly traumatised by school experiences at the hands of bullying teachers she left early and forfeited the chance to go to university.

She said: "In front of 40 other students, my maths tutor told me I was mentally disabled and had no skills.

"I ended up on antidepressants every time I was going to the class. I was sick and shaking from the inside. She made me hate schools and tutors.

"I had dreams and ambitions to become someone famous and to create with passion. She took it away from me."

So Wioletta left her home town of Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski for the city of Krakow, in search of a new life. She worked as a store detective, then a security officer.

She recalled: "I rented a room from a couple of students and what I earned was just enough to survive until the next payment."

Later, she decided to come to London, where she paid for English classes by cleaning houses, a tough and demanding job.

She said: "Sometimes, the people I cleaned for would leave notes about washing and ironing.

"I didn't know what they meant, so I had to look up each word with my dictionary. After that, I would go to college for three hours to learn English each night."

After two long years Wioletta became reasonably fluent and moved on to study make-up, though wasn't until she met her partner on the internet that her life turned around. She moved to Southend two years ago and has never looked back.

She said: "I love it here.

"This country gave me back all my belief and passion, making my studying enjoyable.

"My tutor from the hairdressing college is the best tutor ever. She made me feel very comfortable. She believed in me.

"She gave me the motivation and all the support."