Nordic National Committees

2018-10-16T09:32:22+01:00November 21st, 2016|

MeetingIt has been a pleasure to host the Nordic National Committees (representatives from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden with a special guest from the Latvian NC) on campus for their Annual General Meeting this weekend. Their itinerary has included connecting with students, meeting for their AGM and with members of the Education Management Team and the Admissions Development Team, and attending the Asian Show in the Høegh. We are looking forward to working together, following encouraging discussions, to launch a Nordic Short Course in 2018 (perhaps in tandem with Red Cross Youth with a view to promoting both UWC and Red Cross values) – this would give us the opportunity to extend our UWC impact and to take advantage of our spectacular campus in the summer and facilities.

Sandefjord and Nesbru MUN 2017

2018-10-16T09:32:23+01:00November 21st, 2016|

It was a great honour to be a part of the 13th annual SANMUN (Sandefjord and Nesbru Model United Nations) conference held near Oslo on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th of November. SANMUN is one of the biggest MUN conferences in Norway and welcomed up to 170 delegates from all around Scandinavia with a delegation also coming from the Netherlands. This year’s SANMUN conference was mainly aimed at tackling the global issue of “Development” which is especially relevant for countries which are constantly suffering from violence, conflicts and political instability.

As usual, UWC Red Cross Nordic was represented. This year by a delegation composed of Paula Bausch (Germany), Precious Dlamini (Swaziland) and Lamine Male (Senegal). The delegation was representing the Republic of Iraq in the general assembly and we were on three different committees; the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC) and Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM).

The topics discussed in the different committees were mainly:

• Measures to prevent the smuggling of migrants
• The question of women’s rights and members of the LGBTQ+ community rights
• Measures to regulate and decrease cybercrime

Paula, Precious and LamineAs delegates, we had several meetings prior to and during the MUN in which we discussed the way in which we would like to approach the conference as a whole. One of the most important aims of these meetings was to represent our country while respecting the position of the current Iraqi government. Therefore, in all committees and in the general assembly, we were contributing to debates and seeking the best resolutions reflecting the ideology of the current Iraqi regime. It was a great opportunity for us as students to be in the shoes of representatives of a nation in the UN. This simulation made us all realize how the real United Nations work and how hard it is to draft resolutions and find general consensus between a large number of states with very different backgrounds and interests.

Although the three of us have had some prior experience in Model United Nations, participating in this year’s SANMUN conference was a truly enlightening experience. We had the opportunity to meet and interact with many other enthusiastic delegates from all over Scandinavia – which was truly amazing. Moreover, since all three of us are going to be chairs for the UWCRCN MUN 2017, we had an opportunity to observe the way SANMUN was conducted and find new interesting ways for improving the upcoming MUN conference which will be hosted at RCN in the New Year.

Overall, SANMUN was a very educative and fun experience. It helped us to improve skills such as public speaking and collaborating with other people in order to put together a resolution. All of us deeply enjoyed every second spent at the conference and wish to have further experience and fun in MUN in the future.

Lamine Male
On behalf of the UWC RCN delegation (Paula Bausch and Precious Dlamini)

Ezequiel Jimenez (’07 – ’09)

2016-11-14T08:25:49+01:00November 14th, 2016|

Where to start? The fjord. Fiskekake. The boathouse. The K building. World Today. Mariano. Kåre S. Pete. Daniel. MT. Winter. Tea. Being cold. The 3km trip to Flekke shop. The room temperature. The fifth umbrella of the year. A show. Lots of music and the love of my life. Ah, yes, and the IB.

RCN was a transformative experience changing every bit of whoever I was in 2007. An inexplicable place where possibility is infinite as is the bond that unites a community in the middle of nowhere. The explanation I give to people when trying to explain RCN and what it means to me, always falls short of an explanation of some sort of social experiment where we play to mirror what the world is or ought to be. I wish the world was a tiny bit of what RCN is.

The strong foundation of critical thinking and immense curiosity for understanding and celebrating diversity led me to pursue human rights as a passion. Building on Naren’s human rights class (and Matthew’s during my first year) I was fortunate that Mark and Nicky were an endless source of advice and encouraged me to attend Macalester. Pursuing perhaps a traditional UWC path, I studied Political Science and got to intern and work in various places that continued to feed into a set of intellectual and practical skills within human rights. However, as challenging and enriching Macalester was, I’m not so sure it compares with a Kantina conversation about the state of the world over tea. The certainty of really knowing how to fix the world is a feeling I only had in RCN and have every time I am lucky to return. It’s an incredible sensation of possibility, certainty and empowerment.

Decided to dig a bit further into the machinery of policy making I pursued a masters degree in human rights policy in the UK, Sweden and Norway. For two years I was lucky to devote time to the question of how to make and measure human right-led interventions. The time spent in Norway and Sweden was particularly enriching as I realized that some of my social policy biases are indeed, very Nordic. Fortunate to arrive in the London in a pre-Brexit world, I started working with Amnesty International, trying to materialize my Kantina-like feelings. Currently, I work in the Office of the Secretary General giving technical support to Amnesty’s offices around the world. As frustrating and challenging working in human rights might be, I am encouraged by knowing that there will come a time when my dear RCN and UWC friends around the world will start calling the shots, making sure those countless nights of debate, tea and overpriced First Price cookies were well spent.

And, at time of writing this, there is an urgency for UWC to do its part in putting a sustainable future before ambition, and before bigotry. Knowing that we belong to a principled way of thinking about service and peace, I am confident that even in a Trumplandia world, we can be part of a path showing respect, curiosity in the other and love for what makes us different, unique. I have an unshakeable trust in the people of RCN to lead the way.

 

Antonin Besse – A UWC Founder

2018-10-16T09:32:23+01:00November 14th, 2016|

UWC Red Cross Nordic would like to express its sadness at the news that Antonin Besse, patron and honorary vice-president of UWC, has passed away and to extend our thanks to his family for his deep commitment to UWC since its founding and, in particular, for his support of students from the Yemen who have studied here at RCN over the past 21 years.

It was Antonin who bought and donated St Donat’s Castle for the founding of Atlantic College back in 1962 and who, later, contributed to the founding of the UWCs in Italy and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Closer to home, a few years ago Alistair, our Deputy Rektor, and I were on the phone to the Yemeni National Committee and were in the process of giving a full report on the Yemeni students on campus at the time – a few minutes into the conversation, something began to dawn on Alistair and he began to mouth to me that ‘Tony from the NC’ was, in fact Antonin Besse II (one of the founding figures of UWC). Highly articulate, erudite and perceptive, Tony was committed to following the progress of Yemeni students on our campus – a phone call from Tony from his flat in Paris was never short and always enjoyable. With support from the British Council, he would carry out selections himself with his motto at the heart of his forging connection between the backgrounds of the students and UWC: ‘From Nowhere to Somewhere’.

He was a great admirer of Tom Gresvig, one of the founding members of Red Cross Nordic, and regretted that he had never found an opportunity to visit our campus.

Our Yemeni students owe him a debt of gratitude and so do all members of our College, past and present, given the rich addition of our Yemeni students to our deliberately diverse community over the years.

Frenchman, Arabist, businessman, educator and friend – we thank you for all that you gave to UWC and educating for peace and a sustainable future.

For more information on Tony’s life, his support of UWC, his father (and his partnership with Kurt Hahn), please click here for an extract from David Sutcliffe’s book ‘Kurt Hahn and the United World Colleges with other founding figures’.

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