Cara’s Videos
Cara’s Videos allow our Fellows to tell their stories in their own words, and give others an opportunity to talk about their experiences of working with Cara, and to explain why they think it is worth supporting our work. They are available on the Cara YouTube channel, and there are also individual links below.
Cara also has a series of Visa and Career Development Videos, giving guidance for Cara Fellows hoping to build their careers and even move into paid jobs during their time in the UK – click here.
Cara’s 2019 Fellowship Video
Three Cara Fellows talk about their experiences, and the Cara Fellowship team explain how the Programme works to get people like them to safety.
Dr Leila Alieva and Dr Farah Ali
Two Cara Fellows, Dr Leila Alieva from Azerbaijan and Dr Farah Ali from Iraq, spoke movingly at a Cara reception on 17 June 2019 about their experiences of leaving their own countries and coming to study and work in the UK. With an introduction by Professor Michael Worton CBE, Cara’s Chair.
2017 Fellowship Video
In another Fellowship Video, from 2017, two Cara Fellows from Syria, Reem and Saeed, explored what they had had to leave behind, talked about what they were doing in the UK and discussed their hopes of returning home in the future.
Syria Programme
At a Cara reception in London on 17 June 2019, hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine, Professor Colleen McLaughlin of the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and Dr Shaher Abdullateef, a Cara Syria Programme participant, spoke at the launch of two Reports and a Policy Brief on the State of Higher Education in Syria.
The Reports, produced as part of the first phase of Cara’s Syria Programme, looked at the situation before the crisis broke in 2011, the damage done since then, and what should be done to start putting matters right. Professor McLaughlin and Dr Abdullateef discussed the process leading up to the writing of the Reports, and the many challenges they had faced and overcome.
The full text of the two Reports is available here (Part 1, pre-2011, English and Arabic) and here (Part 2, post-2011, English and Arabic), and the Policy Brief is available here (English and Arabic).
Academic Freedom
On 25 October 2021 Professor Michael Ignatieff, fresh from his experience of being forced to move most of the Central European University’s operations from Budapest to Vienna due to pressure from the Orban government, reflected on the growing challenges to academic freedom around the world, and responded frankly to questions from the live and online audience. His lecture, ‘Academic Freedom: Right or Privilege?’ was the eighth in Cara’s ‘Science and Civilisation’ series, and was hosted jointly with the Royal Society.
Are threats to academic freedom damaging global science?
In December 2020 The Royal Society and Cara co-hosted a panel discussion on “Are threats to academic freedom damaging global science?” The panel was chaired by Professor Jim Al-Khalili, theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster who, among many other things, delivered Cara’s first annual ‘Science and Civilisation‘ lecture at the Royal Society in 2013.
The panellists were Professor Veronica van Heyningen CBE FMedSci FRS, the distinguished geneticist; Professor The Lord Krebs Kt FMedSci FRS, notable zoologist, public administrator, and son of a prominent ‘Cara Fellow’ from the 1930s; Mr Zaher Al Bakour, current Cara Fellow, from Syria; with Professor Robin Perutz FRS, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of York and another son of a prominent 1930s ‘Cara Fellow’, and Professor Sir Richard Catlow FRS FRSC FInstP, the Royal Society’s Foreign Secretary and Vice-President.
Supporters and History
In a video recorded in 2018 (see top of page), the world-famous sculptor and Cara supporter Sir Antony Gormley explained to Cara Patron Jon Snow why he supported Cara’s work. Academics are ‘the intellectual DNA of society’, he said, which explained why they were often targeted first by tyrants. Cara’s work involved thinking very objectively and practically about who and what would be needed to recover a situation after a conflict. In the meantime, those whom Cara had brought to the UK had, over the years, immensely enriched British society.
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, former President of the Supreme Court and the eldest son of Albert Neuberger who was helped by Cara in the 1930s, delivered the keynote address at a Cara reception on 17 June 2019 at the Royal Society of Medicine, which was sponsored by the April Trust.
Also, in early March 2020, just before the Covid-19 lockdown began, our Director spoke at a Conference in Cambridge, on the theme of ‘Cambridge: City of Scholars, City of Refuge (1933-1945)‘, to introduce the event’s keynote speaker, Professor the Lord Krebs, the son of one of the many German academics helped by Cara in the 1930s. The organisers’ opening remarks, our Director’s talk, and Lord Krebs’s address are available here.
Three children of people who were helped at that time by the SPSL, as Cara was then, also spoke:
Miriam Glucksmann, on ‘Two Paths to Strangeways: Alfred Glucksmann and Ilse Lasnitzki‘
Robin Perutz, on ‘Max Perutz in his own words, 1936-1945‘
Vivien Perutz, on ‘The Impact of the Emigrés from Nazi Europe on British Art History‘
Cara in Scotland
Cara held its first ‘Scotland Conference’ in April 2018, kindly hosted by the University of Edinburgh.
From the Archives
In 2012, Justice Albie Sachs of South Africa, whom Cara is proud to have helped on two separate occasions, gave a lecture at a Cara event hosted by UCL, and spoke about his experiences.
Funding Appeals
And if you found these videos interesting, and want to learn how you can support Cara’s work:
Cara’s Chair, Professor Michael Worton, concluded the 17 June 2019 presentations with an appeal for funding. As he explained, many universities were already providing generous support, but Cara was now turning to individuals who shared Cara’s aims, who cared about the persecuted, and who wanted to be more engaged in Cara’s work. With more funds, Cara could help even more people to get to safety. The links to donate are here (for regular Direct Debit donations as part of Cara’s ’10×20′ campaign) and here for one-off and other donations. Thank you!
Times Higher Education awards ceremony
If you want to know even more about the background to Cara’s ’10×20′ appeal, watch the video of the November 2017 launch at the Times Higher Education awards ceremony, by Cara President Professor Sir Malcolm Grant and Cara Patron Jon Snow