This story is featured in our Episode 42.
Richard Washington is British. He is the Director of Communications and Recruitment at the College of Europe‘s Warsaw campus in Natolin.
Despite less than 7 years in Poland, he speaks excellent Polish and this is what we talk about on POLcast.
Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands to a British father and a mother from the Caribbean island of Curacao, he holds a Master of Arts in Modern History from the University of Oxford (1995). After a career as a theatre actor (he graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in 1997), he returned to academic study in 2006, gaining a Master of Science in European Politics from Birkbeck College, University of London (2010). During this time he developed a new career in charity fundraising and major donor development.
Coming to Poland to continue his studies at Natolin in 2010 (Einstein Promotion), he graduated in 2011 and was awarded Best Student of the Major Governance in the European Union. From 2011 – 13 he was Research Assistant with the EP Bronisław Geremek European Civilisation Chair. As a result of this work, in 2013 he published a scholarly article in the Polish language journal Nowa Europa entitled Czy dyskurs publiczny jest odpowiedzią na kryzys europejskiego przywództwa? Przykład Valéry’ego Giscarda d’Estaing (The European Leadership Crisis – is Public Discourse the Answer? The Example of French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing).
In his country of citizenship, the UK, he also spent a number of years in politics, representing his local community in his local city council from 1998-2002, as well as managing political campaigns.
On our POLcast (Episode 41) we showed Richard’s role as the chair of monthly meetings of the Ladies and Gentlemen Club – I attended its March meeting and enjoyed it tremendously. Richard is also involved in the British Alumni Society and many other educational initiatives, such as the At the 10th Congress of Polish Student Societies in the UK (see Episode 40).
Selected interviews with Richard about Brexit (in Polish):