Graduation Ceremony 2017

2018-10-16T09:32:07+01:00May 22nd, 2017|

Graduation took place on Saturday 20th May at UWC Red Cross Nordic. It was a pleasure to welcome so many families, host families from our local community and other guests on Friday evening for dinner in the Høegh and then a cultural show – all coordinated by the first year students. The ceremony took place in a beautifully decorated auditorium at 14:00 on Saturday and consisted of speeches, a slideshow, a special video for the occasion (see here and below), musical performances and the formal graduation procession. The Rektor, Richard Lamont, opened the ceremony with a welcome address and introduced our Guest of Honour, Hans Von Sponeck. Hans has served as a UN Assistant Secretary-General and UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq and has won several international prizes for his work towards peace. He is a staunch supporter of UWC and has worked tirelessly over the years to enable students from Iraq to attend our schools and colleges.

Liv Ronglan, the RCN Board Rep for the Norwegian Red Cross, gave a powerful address about the College’s partnership with the Red Cross and the role our students can play in the future. Her address was followed by speeches from Gunhild Berge Stang (Mayor of Fjaler), from second year students (Tess Luttikhus from the Netherlands and Adrian Sidhu from the UK) and the farewell message was given by Tove Veierød (our outgoing Chair of the RCN Board).

Many of the parents of our second year students were unable to attend the ceremony – and therefore we have posted lots of images, recordings of speeches and musical performances on faceboook and a copy of the graduation ceremony programme so that our whole community can connect with the occasion.

For a copy of Larry’s welcome address, please click here; for a copy of Hans’ speech please click here; and for a copy of Liv’s speech, click here.

Graduating Students

Graduating Students

Congratulations to all our graduating students!

Graduation 2017.What a day. This is the video the students made for showing during the Graduation Ceremony. Thank you to Nik and Maja. Video of the ceremony, and photographs of the day to follow ….

Gepostet von UWC Red Cross Nordic am Samstag, 20. Mai 2017

For an album of photographs, click here.
For a playlist of videos, click here.

Red Cross and Red Crescent Day

2018-10-16T09:32:08+01:00May 16th, 2017|

May 8th marked the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Day, celebrating the Red Cross Principles in action all over the world.

At RCN students and staff could take pictures with statements expressing solidarity, calculate their personal slavery footprint, indicating the number of slaves that work for each and everyone of us, win a cupcake if they knew all the seven principles of the Red Cross, and take part in several other activities.

The newly-founded Red Cross Youth Group at the College organized all events, trying to emphasize the connection between the school and the Red Cross.

We were very happy with the turn out of the day, as many people had conversations about the Red Cross Principles and their meaning both for us here and in other places in the world.

See an album of photographs here.

Coastal clean-up in Dale

2018-10-16T09:32:08+01:00May 9th, 2017|

The barbeque after the workWater pollution caused by humans threatens marine life and ultimately humans. One of the most harmful pollutants is plastic waste that will travel with currents for thousands of miles and for hundreds of years. Sometimes it finally reaches the coast. Every May thousands of Norwegians gather along the coast to help with the cleaning of waste washed up on the shore.

This year, for the first time, RCN students joined forces with people from Dale to clean the fjord’s coastline. On Saturday, 6th May a group of  students and staff members went to Dale armed with gloves and trash bags and cleaned about a kilometer long stretch of coastline. We found and bagged old fishing lanes, shreds of plastic bags, long pieces of ropes and other plastic rubbish. We also realised that people are recklessly dumping hazardous waste in the fjord as well: we found half-burnt building insulation materials.

The weather was really kind with glorious sunshine and we were able to spend not just a useful but a very joyful day in Dale that ended on the beach with bathing, cooking over a barbeque and playing volleyball.

Investment Competition

2018-10-16T09:32:10+01:00May 8th, 2017|

Four of our students were given the opportunity to travel to The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to participate in the final of an investment competition. The Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Here is the report written by Yash Ramchandani, one of our participants:

With the trophy

With the trophy

A little over half a year ago three of my best friends and I had a conversation about sustainable and ethical investing. As a result, we started on a journey to prove that it is indeed very possible. We founded a Trading Club (EAC) at teh College with the sole purpose of accumulating knowledge about investing sustainably and ethically. By November we had gained the confidence to enroll a team in Wharton School of Business’ Global Investment Competition for High School students. The competition consists of a 10-week trading period with deadlines for mid-term and final investment strategies. In this way, every team has to prove that their approach to the stock market generates satisfying returns and is well-structured.

Our investment strategy was built on the same values as the UWC movement as we believe that the reputation of the financial services has long been blighted by actions that do not, of necessity, need to be linked to the field of investing. In fact, we have come to believe that investment has the potential to invoke positive change in our societies. In April we were informed that we had qualified for the Global Final taking place at Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia U.S. Here, the 15 top teams would pitch their investment strategy to a jury. The jury consisted of professional investors and asset managers. The Final also included a learning day where we heard from influential guest speakers, the admissions office and had a campus tour.

Today, we find that we came third in the competition having started with more than 600 competing teams from all over the world. We never even dared to dream of such an achievement but it is indeed a product of hard work and humility. Today, we stand as proud of the journey towards the final as of the result itself. We hope to repeat the success next year where we will work even harder to communicate our idea of ethical and sustainable investing.

Here is an audio interview with the team, from the Wharton website.

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