RCN is developing a relationship with Nordahl Grieg Videregående skole in Bergen. Earlier this week members of our student council travelled to meet their counterparts. Here are Student Council member Emma du Marchie Sarvaas’ s reflections.

Six Student Council members travelled to Bergen on Sunday 22nd. We were met by two members and the ‘Student Inspector’ of the Student Council from Nordahl Grieg Videregående skole (NGV). We drove to the school and got a warm welcome from other Student Council members and the headmaster of NGV. Because it was already quite late we went to the homes of the six Student Council members who were friendly enough to host us.

On Monday morning, after we had our official welcome, we attended different classes. It was interesting to see the difference between the Norwegian school system and the way we have classes at UWC. One of the main differences was that NGV uses a lot of technology in class, this was then also one of the points we discussed in our meeting after the classes. The aim of our visit to NGV was to discuss a co-operation between UWC RCN and NGV. We talked a lot about ways to connect the schools and we exchanged ideas. We didn’t only talk, but we also held some Youth as Agents for Behavioural Change (YABC) workshops and had a very nice dinner and evening together.

On Tuesday morning we participated again in some classes and afterwards we had our final discussions about mental health, problems around the issue of motivation and a new initiative at NGV, the ‘Rainbow Week’. The Student Council at NGV consists of 66 students so after lunch we presented our ideas to the rest of the Student Council and shared a description of the structure of the RCN Student Council and our approach to academics and extra academics.

It was a very nice visit after which we came away with a lot of new ideas, inspired each other and created friendships with students and potential host families in Bergen. We hope to welcome the NGV students to our campus very soon!

We are delighted to announce a new partnership between UWC Red Cross Nordic and The Horizon Foundation.

The Horizon Foundation’s mission is:

To improve the lives of children, families and communities in developing countries around the world, by offering education and care programmes. The Horizon Foundation was set up by Patrick and Kirkland Smulders in 2006 to help improve the lives of young people and their communities in various countries in the Middle East and Asia through education. It was born of a joint desire to give back through empowering young people and women to act as change agents in their local communities and to focus in particular on societies that we felt would benefit from strong leadership.’

The Horizon Foundation currently has UWC partnerships with UWC Atlantic College, UWC Maastricht and UWC-USA. It seeks to support students ‘from disadvantaged communities in developing countries, who would not otherwise have the means to study further, or to study abroad. They must be academically strong enough to be awarded the scholarship on their own merits and they must have the expressed desire to return to their home communities to improve them. They should also have experience of helping others, either through voluntary, community or political work, or have completed internships. Its target regions are the Middle East and Asia, with the majority of our scholars coming from refugee populations.’

To date, the The Horizon Foundation has educated in excess of 100 scholars from Tibet, Palestine, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, the Philippines and Afghanistan. Through its Haven programme, The Horizon Foundation has also supported education programmes in Bethlehem, Palestine; Ulanbataar, Mongolia; Kolkata, India; and Dharamsala, for the Tibetan community in exile.

Following discussions with UWC RCN’s Admissions Department, The Horizon Foundation has supported the selection and offered to sponsor Yangzom Dolma (Tibetan student currently living in India) and Yehya Al Haj (Palestinian student currently living in Lebanon). Yangzom and Yehya will join other UWC first and second year students who are supported by The Horizon Foundation.

For more information, please click here.

Following on from the success of 2014 when Elisabeth Dietz (Norway) and Izman Suhail (Maldives) were awarded two of the three gold medals of the Baltic Sea Philosophical Essay Event, this year Alexis Fonjallaz (Sweden) and Rachele Dal Cin (Italy) were placed in the top five students for their essay submissions and were awarded silver medals – a magnificent achievement. The competition is held each year by Baltic countries on the UNESCO World Philosophy Day – students from circa 15 countries participate in this essay competition with 150 essays submitted. The results were announced this afternoon in Helsinki. A fine end to a superb day of events to mark UNESCO Philosophy Day.

This weekend sees the last of the autumn university visits – with Professor Doreen Stabinsky, from the College of the Atlantic, visiting to meet prospective students and to deliver a presentation on global environmental politics (she is currently in Sweden, serving as the first-ever Zennström Visiting Professor in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University). The University Office has posted a new record of university visitors (both in person and via webinars) for the autumn season – 40 representatives from Europe, Canada and USA

Last weekend Mark, our Senior University Counsellor, hosted Marielle Van Der Meer (The Netherlands – and Minerva Schools’ Managing Director for Europe). Please find below some reflections by Marielle on her visit to RCN for the first time:

‘A few days ago I had the privilege to finally visit UWC Red Cross Nordic in Norway – one of the most remote UWCs – a cluster of colourful wooden houses set on the shores of a secluded fjord, with a backdrop of mountains, forests and waterfalls. It had taken me 14 hours and a tram, a train, a bus, two planes, another bus, a boat and yet another bus to get here.

It was somehow meaningful at a personal level that whilst news reached me of cruel, shocking and pointless acts of violence in Beirut and Paris with many innocent people losing their lives, I was finding myself in this beautiful bubble of united cultures, ideals, beliefs and ideas. 200 kids from 95 nationalities living together, sharing moments of joy, anxiety, sadness; intent to solve misunderstandings, to find similarities rather than disparities and to be advocates and examples of a world where humanity and respect prevail over personal, cultural, religious and ideological differences…

…I’d like to believe that even though rockets are exploding, guns are being fired, hatred is fuelled, lives are lost, and 1000s of displaced human beings are traversing this continent looking for sanctuary and kindness, there still is infinitely more beauty and goodness in the world than there is tragedy and sadness – and that it is the promise, the power, and the responsibility of education to create space for dialogue and understanding, to build bridges, to give voices, and to enable solutions to conflict.’

A timely reminder from Marielle as to the core purpose behind our UWC educational model and mission to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.