The Visit of Brinda Carey from Texas

Between 20 May and 9 June 2016 Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra hosted Brinda Carey. She was invited by Ms Ida Baj, a lecturer at a University of Continuing Education for senior citizens of our city. She kindly offered to host Brinda in her home. Thanks to the visit of Brinda Karkonosze College signed an agreement with the Tyler Junior College - regarding the exchange of staff. 

Ms Brinda Carey is an author and comes from the city of Tyler located in Texas, USA. She published among others books such as: Don’t Cry, Daddy’s Here  and Grandma’s Cactus Garden. She was selected for a project to work on through the Northeast Consortium of Colleges and Universities, whose director, Mickey Slimp, visited Karkonosze  College last year. It was then when the idea of a common project involving citizens of Jelenia Góra and Tyler was suggested by Ida Baj, a senior staff member of the Karkonosze College. Ms Ida Baj is currently active at the Karkonosze University of Third Age - a sort of community programme for senior citizens of Jelenia Góra. Photos from the visit of Mickey Slimp and other guests from Tyler in 2015 are available here.

Brinda Carey explains that the project will be to exchange stories between seniors she works with and Ida's class. Brinda teaches memoir writing and together with Ida they plan to publish a booklet of memoirs of Polish and American seniors. Moreover they are setting up a sort of Pen Pal project between their students. The American students have already sent a message for the Polish ones - in the form of a colourful poster - and the Polish students did the same. The proposed title of the common project will be "Stags and Roses"  - as "jeleń" from Jelenia Góra means a male deer – “stag” - and Tyler is a city famous for Roses. 

The regular programme students from Karkonosze College as well as Senior students were able to meet her on Wednesday, 25 May 2016 at 16:00 in the building of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. The Senior students had even more meetings planned with Brinda, on 25 and 27 May. On 31 May she was invited to a meeting to the city of Jelenia Góra.

Attached to this article are photos from some of the meetings.