Luiza SOSNA
Commissioner for Integration and Equal Opportunities for the borough of Strassen, Luxembourg
She grew up in Poland and experienced a sense of culture shock during the time she spent living and studying in Germany, something which she processed in her Master’s thesis, entitled ‘The Culture Shock of East Germans following the fall of the Berlin wall’.
This experience helped her to quickly settle in when she undertook a second significant migration to Luxembourg and she was able to press ahead with her own integration in a targeted fashion.
Her first professional experience in an extremely multinational and multilingual large consulting firm in Luxembourg gave her the idea of applying for the first post for integration at local and regional level in Luxembourg. With the support of the mayor and the Ministry for the Family, Luiza Sosna took up her work in 2009 as the Commissioner for Integration and Equal Opportunities for the borough of Strassen, leading to this post growing into a model in Luxembourg.
It is worth mentioning that the local and regional authority of Strassen, which counts 7500 inhabitants, is home to exactly 90 nationalities, which now make up over 56% of the population.