Visit of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology

On January 8, 2024, at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw, we had the honor of hosting the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, Ms. Yōko Kamikawa.

The visit began with the presentation of a plaque commemorating the establishment of the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology under an agreement concluded between the governments of Poland and Japan in 1994.

The first part of the meeting with Minister Kamikawa was attended by the Rector of PJAIT, Prof. Jerzy Paweł Nowacki, Vice-Rector for Research, Prof. Maria Elżbieta Orłowska, the Ambassador of Japan to Poland, Mr. Akio Miyajima, students of the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, as well as participants and teachers of the IT skills course.

The project Data Collection Survey for Ukrainian IT Human Resource Development was initiated by the Japanese government agency Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in close cooperation with the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw.

The course participants are refugees from Ukraine with higher education who, due to the difficult political situation, had to leave their country and abandon their previous jobs. The aim of the training was for them to acquire new skills in the field of IT, which will allow them to find their place in the modern job market in Poland.

In the next part of the meeting, students from the Faculty of Japanese Culture expressed their satisfaction with being able to learn the Japanese language and gain knowledge about Japanese history and culture, while a student representative from Ukraine from the Faculty of New Media Arts told Minister Kamikawa about the support actions for Ukrainians that the academy got involved in after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Female participants of the IT skills course also spoke during the meeting, thanking Japan for the support offered to Ukraine and Ukrainians, and movingly shared their experiences related to moving to Poland.

Minister Yōko Kamikawa assured that Japan will continue its support for Ukrainians staying in Poland, creating new opportunities for them to study and improve their skills, and encouraged students of the Faculty of Japanese Culture to further explore the Japanese language and embark on inspiring journeys to Japan.

The meeting concluded with an exceptionally warm conversation between Minister Yōko Kamikawa and female refugees from Ukraine under the care of UNICEF Poland regarding their experiences related to adapting to new conditions.