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Father and Daughter at St. Clare's - a story with over two decades between them...
At St. Clare's, the diversity of people and experiences never cease to amaze us. This year we have studying with us, at Bardwell Road, Akane Okamoto-Kaminski. Following her father's footsteps, Akane has also chosen St. Clare's to pursue her education with our Advanced Studies Programme. This programme provides a rare and stimulating opportunity to improve the student's English language skills, whilst studying up to three academic subjects alongside our native English-speaking undergraduates.
Prof. Ignacy Marek Kaminski was born in Poland. Unfortunately, he had to leave the country in 1972. Three years later, in 1975, he became a student at St. Clare's, where he studied English. Having been forced to a life in exile he devoted his career to doing cross-cultural research and teaching cultural anthropology. He completed his PhD thesis in the University of Sweden, thus having had to learn Swedish in order to be able to study and present his work. He met and married a young Japanese, part Korean woman, and moved with her to Japan in 1976. In a recent article in the Japan Times, he said: "Again, it was complicated. My marriage was mixed, I was stateless - a refugee, but Polish at heart." However, after two years time he received Swedish citizenship and Akane was born in Sweden, in 1978.
Akane performed with the famous all-women theatre Takarazuka, which she has left after her final Tokyo appearance this summer. With her eyes set on the London stage, Akane is not far from her dream, now that her father seems to have seen his dream come true.
"As a refugee, I left a divided Europe, as a university lecturer, I return to a united Europe. Since I left my communist-dominated Poland in 1972 and travelled the world on a stateless passport and then a Swedish passport, my two beloved countries Poland and Sweden are being united within the EU. For me, it is like a dream", he said.

Back in 1976, Mushine Arda-Carroll came to St. Clare's to study English for one year. This year, as a School Principal, she is sending us one of her students: Meral Zumbulyuva. Meral is an Agricultural Engineer and is working at the family's textile company. English is essential for her work.
Mushine thought she could benefit greatly from a course in England - "Of course, I could not think of any school better than St. Clare's", she said. Following Mushine's advice Meral enrolled in a General English course and will be staying with us until March next year.

We could not be happier to welcome Akane and Meral to St. Clare's and wish them all the best with their future projects.