Minding their language

Jaroslaw Guva offers advice and help of a financial nature to the thousands of Polish people who have settled here helping them to overcome the language barrier.

Jaroslaw, 38 works for Mansfield based Assured Money Solutions (AMS), who spotted his potential.

He said: “It is strange to admit that I am a qualified lawyer. I worked as an expansion manager for Tesco in Poland but we lost our jobs and it was very hard to find something suitable over there.

“I came over and started to work at Sports Direct in 2012. After two weeks I was given a job doing office work for them.“

Jaroslaw, who is fluent in English and German and the Baltic languages was soon in demand offering his services as a translator.

He said: “I was taken on by AMS because I had lots of connections in the Polish community.

“People who work there at Sports Direct trust me. A lot of them don’t speak English and I thought it would be a good idea to help people get better deals.

AMS Managing director Lee Dunville, said: ” We have a very loyal customer base among people employed by Sports Direct and so it was natural for us to appoint a polish speaking advisor.

“Jaroslaw is the lynch pin, he goes into the bank and helps them. Taking on a mortgage which is difficult at the best of times but when you have a language barrier it is ten times worse.”