A learning experience

ALASTAIR PAULIN - Nelson | Saturday, 05 July 2008

The news that Nelson is on the shortlist as a site for a United World College jolted me back 24 years, to when I was 17 and staring out a van window at run-down shacks, desert rock formations and tumble-weeds in New Mexico.

I was on my way to the United World College of the American West, an international school for 200 hand-picked teenagers, its aim to foster international understanding and peace. The vision sounded lofty and prestigious; the view was anything but. What had I got myself into?

read more: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/nelsonmail/4608928a19260.html

- United World College Student Magazine -

Zimbabwe

From: Tariq Tobias (Zimbabwe, AC06-08)

As I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the hotel I was staying at, two police officers converged on me and informed me that it was illegal to take pictures and that I should give them my camera and follow them to the nearest station. After much argument and negotiation I escaped (with the equivalent of $1 less in my pocket). Oh yes, I kept the picture of the hotel and I was further inspired to take a few more. I share them here for all to see some of what a madman can do.

UWC as a State of Mind - Thoughts on Debt

From: Tiina Honkanen (Finland, RCN03-05)

In recent times there has been much discussion about the duties and responsibilities of UWC alumni. In particular, we have discussed the topic in relation to alumni activities and running the national UWC networks. United World Colleges have indeed given us all so much, even if we could not pinpoint exactly what it is, why would someone not want to give some back to the community and ensure that generations to come have the same opportunity as we did?

Going to school in a castle

From: Surrey North Delta Leader

By: Sheila Reynolds

It may look a little like Hogwarts, but Katherine Carey won’t likely meet any budding Harry Potters or learn to cast magical spells where she’s going.

Carey, 17, is heading to Wales this fall to continue her education at Atlantic College, one of 12 United World Colleges (UWC) around the globe.

Don’t worry, bee happy: AC bee keeping students are featured in TES Cymru

The humble honey bee is under threat from a killer parasite. But as they increasingly fall victim to the Varroa mite worldwide, students at Atlantic College in the Vale of Glamorgan have helped two endangered wild colonies survive this term as part of an eco-friendly project, tending to the swarms and raising money for the scheme by selling honey and honeycomb extract. Bees are one of nature’s most useful insects. When they are collecting nectar they spread pollen, which fertilises food crops. But last winter one in five bee colonies died in the UK.

Celebrity Not Policy

Jessamyn McArdle (England, AC 07-09)

If you open up a glossy magazine these days, it is becoming increasingly likely that instead of that bronzed actress on her honeymoon in Hawaii, you will find the escapades of that slightly overweight, pale politician plastered across the pages. But, far from being repulsed, people are now attracted to this kind of ‘publicity’ to a level so precarious that it sways their vote and consequently, shapes the nation.

Polar Challenge achievement for UWC Scholarships

Yoyo Schepers has returned from the Arctic having successfully completed the 2008 Polar Challenge. She has raised over £30,000 for UWC scholarships aimed at young women from countries in crisis in the Middle East and Africa.

Yoyo had wanted to go the North Pole for many years. “It was all a brilliant experience, tough, but worth it. Knowing that I was doing some good often helped to make you struggle through a tough day.” 

The Polar Challenge is a competitive, 350 mile team-race across the Arctic.  Competitors race on skis, pulling their supplies in 120lb pulks (ski sleds). The race finishes just beyond the 1996 location of the Magnetic North Pole. Yoyo spent over a month in total in the Arctic, one of the world’s most extreme environments.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Yoyo on her challenge.       

Click here to sponsor Yoyo. All funds raised will provide scholarships for young women from the Middle East and Africa.

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- United World College Student Magazine -

AC Ex-student is honoured with medical award

Atlantic College sends its congratulations to ex-student Dr Shermeen Chan (AC 96-98) who, on 18 June 2008, will be presented with the Dr Ben Finkelstein Family Medicine Award on behalf of The Hamilton Academy of Medicine Foundation and the Hamilton Academy of Medicine, in Canada. The Dr. Ben Finkelstein Family Medicine Award is presented annually to a final-year McMaster University Family Practice Resident who demonstrates a kind, compassionate nature and possesses a strong interest in family counseling and therapy.

- United World College Student Magazine -

UWC’s newest Colleges celebrate their first graduations

At the end of May, UWC’s newest Colleges, UWC in Mostar and UWC Costa Rica celebrated the graduations of the pioneering class of 2008.   

UWC in Mostar opened in 2006 in the restored Mostar Gymnasium, an existing school teaching two curricula separately for Croat and Bosniak students. UWC in Mostar, based on a single floor of the Gymnasium offers a single curriculum for all its students - drawn from all national groups of Bosnia and Herzogovina as well as overseas. It is part of the innovative UWC-IBO Initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina which aims to contribute to the post-conflict reconstruction of education in the region.

Tanzania Project 2008

In a few weeks 13 students from Atlantic College will travel to Tanzania. They will continue the work that was done in summer 2007.

The Tanzania Summer Project 2007 has been working with the Hananasif Orphanage Center (HOCET) in the capital of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam. For three weeks, twelf Atlantic College students from all over the world worked together with the children from the HOCET.
The HOCET is a “is a faith-based, non-profit, development-oriented organization serving orphaned and underprivileged children in the city of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania” (visit the website). It consists of the City Center and the “Shamba” Center, which is located in the outskirts of the city.

Alberta student Hong Kong bound

Eight lucky Alberta students recently received a Grant Macewan, United World College scholarship. Meike Radler from Strathcona Tweedsmuir School in Okotoks was among them.

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- United World College Student Magazine -

Student’s love of animals a roar of success

Sara Ditta, The Edmonton Journal

Published: Friday, June 13

EDMONTON - Danielle Becker isn’t sheepish about her love of animals. The 16-year old will travel to Wales this fall to study sheep, cattle and organic farming in hopes of one day becoming a large-animal veterinarian.She is one of eight Alberta students to win a United World College scholarship.

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International Summer School brings together UWC students

Daniel Prinz (Hungary, AC 07-09)

The International Summer School on Climate Change and the Water Cycle was the first of what is planned to be a series of Summer Schools taking place at the United World College of the Adriatic (UWCAD). UWCAD is located in a village called Duino, near Trieste in Italy and is one of the foremost members of the United World College movement accepting only full scholarship students from about 80 countries around the world. The student population also includes music and physics scholars, that is the college dedicates a number of its scholarships to students with special talents in these fields. The physics scholarship programme is also run in cooperation with local research centres like The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The college also organized the summer school together with ICTP and the WATCH. The school was attended by students from 11 UWCs (UWCAC, UWCAD, RCNUWC, UWC Mostar, UWC Costa Rica, UWC-USA, Pearson, MUWCI, UWCSEA, LPCUWC and UWC Swaziland). Two Italian students outside of the UWC movement were also invited to attend the conference as well.

UWC New Zealand - College promoter impressed

From: The Nelson Mail

By: Tracy Neal

Queenstown-based project director John Hilhorst was in Nelson yesterday to look at potential sites for the $74 million development.

“Nelson has the degree of diversity and good community spirit that we are looking for,” he said.

“It’s a go-ahead place with good connectivity nationally and internationally.”

Nelson Deputy Mayor Rachel Reese, who has held preliminary talks with representatives of the trust behind the project, confirmed that between three and five sites in the Nelson region were being looked at.

UWC Graduates raising funds for Indian orphan admitted to Atlantic College

Earlier this year, a very dedicated group of Raku’s friends got together and helped him apply (successfully) to Atlantic College. Most of us met Raku at the orphanage where he has lived much of his life in a small village in Himachal Pradesh, India. Many of us have worked in this orphanage as part of the UWC-sponsored Kullu Volunteer Project. We were all extremely impressed by Raku’s intelligence and diligence; he has an open and sincere mind and a passionate drive to succeed. Needless to say, he made a deep and lasting impression on all of us, and we are thrilled and humbled to be working on his behalf.

New UWC in Nelson, New Zealand?

From: The Nelson Mail  

By: TRACY NEAL

Nelson is being eyed as a possible location for a $74 million international college in a global network of 13 other colleges, of which former South African president Nelson Mandela is honorary international president.

New Zealand United World Colleges Trust chairman Tony Baldwin confirmed that Nelson is among a small list of New Zealand regions being considered for a United World College and campus development, which would educate and house up to 250 students.

“If you do nothing, there will be no result….”

Honor Mishcon (England, AC 07-09)

 

On my summer holiday travels in the Middle East, I venture up to a curious place, an almost ‘forgotten city’ in the far north of Israel, close to the Lebanese border.

 

Akko or Acre or Acco, or whatever, has many different names; since it has been ruled by many different kingdoms and people, one hardly knows how to refer to it. Its history spans back 5000 years and it has been occupied by the Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Crusaders, Turks and, of course, one must not forget the British. The city held certain significance as one of the most important trading centres in the world. As a result, spanning across the millennia into modern times, we have a relic of a city, a World Heritage Site (since 2002) with a mish-mash of people and ancient architecture.

 

Post 1948, we enter a culture-torn Israel with three main groups that continue to segregate themselves: the Arabs, the Jews and the Russians. 

 

Within this old city, 60% of the population live below the poverty line, while the other 40% percent are not far from it. Considering the vast and mixed community, this is one of the perfect places to start an outreach centre to try and bring communities together.

 

Bald and beautiful

The move of 20 girls from Mahindra United World College to shave their heads for charity has motivated people from around the world to contribute to the cause. Being impulsive and spontaneous has always been a trait of the youth, a trait sometimes put to use for frivolous exercises. But weathering puerility and thinking about societal welfare, twenty girls from 16 different countries, studying at Mahindra United World College, Mulshi, shaved their heads on March 3 to raise awareness and funds to support the medical clinic of Deep Griha Society, an organisation working for HIV positive patients. Providing medical care for patients living with HIV, the patients of the clinic otherwise would not be able to afford treatments.  

 

read more: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Bald-and-beautiful/314617/

 

 - United World College Student Magazine - 

Solution for ETA: Negotiations or Justice and Jail?

José Ignacio Luis Miguel (Spain, AC 07-09)

 

Around 40 years ago, some regions in Spain, notably the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia, subjugated by General Franco’s dictatorship, started showing their longing for some independence from the central powers of the State. Like any other expression of democratic demands, this was completely illegal and oppression was commonly practised. At that time, any political groups, whether nationalist or liberal, had to meet secretly. A small number of those groups thought violence to be an efficient method of making their voices heard and of fighting the Dictatorship. One of these groups was named ETA (Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna), which can be translated into “Basque Motherland and Freedom”. ETA was responsible for attacks against mostly military objectives, including the killing of one of Franco’s Prime Ministers, Carrero Blanco, through a bombing in Madrid in 1973. Whether the end justified the means is highly arguable. What the facts tell us is that most of the by that time illegal groups, including ETA, became political parties or worker unions following the restitution of democracy after the General’s death in 1975 and ran in the first democratic elections in 1977.

South Africa: Sudden xenophobia?

Ola Omorodion (Nigeria, AC 07-09)

 

This week, news media around the world has been filled with images of violent protests in (can you actually believe it?) South Africa. For the first few months in 2008, Africa has been in the limelight, but unfortunately, due to quite wrong reasons. The year began with the crisis in Kenya and ethnic cleansing which came close to genocide. The atrocities in Sudan still continue and just when the possibility of change presented itself in Zimbabwe (in form of the opposition winning the Presidential elections this year), Mugabe refused to back down and instead has been unleashing a wave of violence in the country.

 

Today, the world is watching in dismay at a country that has actually been thought to be one of the most stable countries in the continent. Police are unable to contain the riots that have taken place in the city of Johannesburg with the residents of shantytowns who have taken to chasing foreigners out of their neighbourhoods and hunting them down . They blame these immigrants as the cause of the increase in crime rates as well as the rise in unemployment. Their houses are being burnt down, women are being raped and at last count, 24 people are said to have been killed. Most attacks are said to be directed against Zimbabweans, who make up 3 million of South African’s 5 million immigrant population. But why these sudden attacks? South Africa is often hailed the Rainbow Nation, so why this sudden xenophobia? And isn’t it possible that the world media might be exaggerating a bit to much? And what do South Africans actually feel about this?