Last week Leonora Kleiven and Joakim Janninge, staff from UWC Connect, visited Atlantic College to meet with their Outdoors Department to learn and share experiences of how to best develop outdoor activities and local outreach. Alongside the sharing they also got to participate in different activities, among them gorging. It was fun! Maybe it will be possible to find suitable rivers close to UWC RCN?
Santa Claus came early to Haugland this year. We have just got the good news that Gjensidige Foundation have granted UWC RCN 125,850NOK to be spent on dry suits for our kayaking and canoeing activities. We are really happy and grateful as this means we can have full year-round activity under the fjords for both students and visitors as well as more appropriate clothing for people with different disabilities, so everybody can participate on equal terms. Thank you Gjensidige Foundation!
Five UWC Red Cross Nordic students – Akari (Japan), Henrik (Norway), Jinho (East Timor), Jorge (Mexico), Mikkeline (Denmark) – and one member of staff (Larry, our Rektor) attended the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in the City Hall in Oslo on Sunday 10th December.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2017 was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The organization received the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.
Please see the links for a) the presentation speech by Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Nobel Committee and b) the Nobel Lecture delivered jointly by ICAN’s Executive Director Beatrice Fihn (Sweden) and Setsuko Thurlow (Japan).
And here is Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Nobel Interview with Beatrice Fihn.
As Beatrice Fihn warned in her acceptance a speech we are a ‘tantrum away’ from a nuclear war.
The world turns its attention every year to the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo and, given UWC’s mission for peace and a sustainable future, it is pertinent that our students are invited to attend the ceremony. The awarding of the prize this year holds special significance for us as a College given we currently have two Japanese students on campus – Akari and Chisato.
RCN delegation with Terumi Tanaka and Toshiki Fujimori
Akari took the initiative to set up a meeting directly before the ceremony with representatives from the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization: Terumi Tanaka Representative (experienced the A-bomb in Nagasaki) and Toshiki Fujimori, the Deputy Secretary General (experienced the A-bomb in Hiroshima). All students from RCN were invited to submit questions in advance and Akari translated and relayed them to the two survivors.
Our students were interviewed by various Japanese news agencies.
Our students were also invited to participate in a news forum in the City Hall, coordinated by Al Jazeera, with two of our students (Henrik and Akari) invited to deliver the following questions to Beatrice Fihn:
The news feature is available on Al Jazeera’s website.
With UWC Waterford Kamhlaba alumni at candlelit parade
We concluded an exciting day by joining the candlelit peace parade through the streets of Oslo to the Grand Hotel where the prize winners greeted the general public from the balcony.
Given UWC’s commitment to ‘peace and a sustainable future’, please join us here at UWC Red Cross Nordic and across all 17 UWCs (including our sister college in Japan which opened this year as a UWC) in congratulating ICAN for its ongoing commitment to a world without nuclear weapons – and in celebrating the award of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Larry Lamont
Rektor
Our University Counsellors, Mark and Hildegunn, continue to do a wonderful job to introduce our students to different pathways beyond UWC Red Cross Nordic.
Throughout this term, they have hosted many counsellors on campus from universities in partnership with the Davis United World College Scholars’ Programme. They also work hard to promote to RCN students other universities across the world – and they hosted a representative on campus from the African Leadership University for the first time.
In late October, Hildegunn visited Singapore Yale NUS (National University of Singapore) to find out more about the university.
As the autumn season comes to a close, they have been supporting second year students applying to the Nordic region, North America, the UK (including Oxbridge), the Netherlands, other universities in Europe, New York University of Abu Dhabi, universities in China, Hong Kong and Japan, and many other institutions.
Thank you for their continued guidance and support of our students.
