Dorota Blumczynska

Join us on November 21 at Launch Co-Working in the Exchange to learn from the fascinating personal journey Dorota Blumczynska, the Chief Executive Officer of the Manitoba Museum.

This Is Not My Mountain – Creating Growth Where Grief Once Lived

In This Is Not My Mountain – Creating Growth Where Grief Once Lived, Dorota Blumczynska invites audiences into an intimate conversation about loss, resilience, and the quiet courage it takes to keep living after life has shattered. With raw honesty and poetic grace, she shares her journey through displacement, violence, and devastating grief — including the loss of her mother — and the unexpected ways healing has reshaped her. This is not a story about triumph over pain, but about learning to breathe beside it, to find tenderness amid the wreckage, and to create meaning where none seemed possible. Dorota reminds us that trauma does not define us — our becoming does. Her words are both an offering and an embrace for anyone who has ever faced a mountain which felt insurmountable and wondered if they could conquer it and move on. Come listen, feel, and remember: you are not alone.

About Our Headliner:

Dorota was born in Poland; six months later martial law was declared, food was rationed, personal freedoms were suppressed, and an uprising took hold of her country. As a child she witnessed her family struggle under an oppressive regime eventually fleeing to eastern Germany. While living in a refugee camp for over a year, her family held onto hope that they would be chosen for resettlement. On October 27th, 1989 they landed in Canada as Privately Sponsored Refugees.

Prior to coming to the Manitoba Museum, Dorota was the Executive Director of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba Inc. (IRCOM). Her deep sense of social justice and equity shaped her leadership of one of Manitoba’s largest and most dynamic settlement and community development organizations.

Joining the Manitoba Museum, a provincial cornerstone institution with reach into the lives of thousands of Manitobans, offered Dorota the opportunity to continue to fulfill her purpose of celebrating our shared humanity. Having personally experienced the Manitoba Museum as a child refugee, she believes it has the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to inclusivity and community cohesion, leaning into its purpose as a living institution and centre for intercultural dialogue.