This weekend, many of us across Scotland will gather to celebrate Burns Night, raising a glass to our national Bard and enjoying plates of haggis, neeps and tatties.
As we prepare, we're thinking about the hands that helped bring that meal together.
At Worker Support Centre, we talk to people mainly from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and further afield who are working long days on Scottish farms in mud, wind and snow, carefully picking and packing our Burns Night potatoes and swede.
Workers have shared their pictures of Burns suppers here in Scotland. Roza (pseudonym) who is from Kazakhstan said she ate traditional haggis, neeps and tatties on her farm.
Our Peer Engagement Officer, Talgat has shared a similarly hearty dish using mutton, onion and potatoes, Kuurdak, common across Central Asia.
These conversations are a powerful reminder that our celebrations are connected to people whose labour often goes unseen and whose experiences in Scotland often include injuries, low pay and poor housing.
Robert Burns wrote of equality, dignity and friendship, and of a world where people are valued not for where they come from but for their shared humanity:
“Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.”
Here’s to a Scotland that truly lives up to those words, including by welcoming and valuing every worker.
Happy Burns Night to all, and Slàinte Mhath!