Four students from four countries, from three schools around Sogn og Fjordane, participated in the year’s biggest event on water issues. The delegation was led by Judit Dudas , the sustainability leader of UWC RCN. Marta Pinzan (Italy, UWC RCN), Sara Overgard (Denmark, Sogn Jord-og Hagebruksskule), Yash Ramchandani (United Arab Emirates,  UWC RCN) and Eirik Hovstad (Norway, Firda Vidergående Skule) here summarize their experiences at the event:

The Budapest Water Summit is an international congress held every 3 years to discuss development in the realm of global water issues – with environmental, socio-economic and political perspectives. This year’s summit took place November 28th- 30th and was attended by around 1400 participants from 110 countries and a variety of sectors including politics, businesses and NGOs. The summit was divided into several forums (youth, civil, science and technology etc) and was intended to serve as a strategic platform to link to the various attempts to meet the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The Summit ended with a call to adopt the newly-formed Budapest Statement 2016 which lays down key solutions that could be implemented by firms, governments, and citizens to attain international water security.

Although our delegation was part of the youth forum, we were allowed to attend the others as well. This gave us a holistic view of the current problems the world faces whether it be sanitation or deforestation. Some specific issues that stood out for us were: The large gap between politicians and scientists, the flaws with the public-private-profit sharing model, and the lack of funding opportunities in water-related projects. Various solutions to these problems were proposed and intensely debated. The solutions ranged from simple things like making appeals to companies to follow policies or making scientific reports more accessible, to more radical ideas such as changing the global monetary system from private money to a public money system as still persisted in many places in the world in the 19th century. Over the course of these days, we also got the opportunity to meet several UN delegates, social enterpreneurs and university researchers. In reality, the Summit was more of a networking location to connect policy makers to entrepreneurial initiatives than a congress to find new solutions. It was extremely encouraging to see that the youth opinion was recognized and valued even at such high levels. It made us really happy to know that despite the difficulties that the world faces today, there is a strong and large community willing to fight for what’s right and bring change where necessary.

We were proud of being able to contribute to the messages of the Summit and hope that this will raise the awareness on water issues of not just political leaders, NGOs, scientist but the youth of Sogn og Fjordane.

We were very pleased to welcome journalist and former TV news anchor Einar Lunde to the College on Wednesday where he spoke eloquently and passionately about his experiences in South Africa during the turbulent post-apartheid period. Deputy Rektor Alistair Robertson, himself a South African, introduced him to a full auditorium of students, staff and outside visitors.

The following is taken from Alistair’s introduction:

Before introducing our guest journalist, I would like to speak about the value of the printed word. When I was a student Mandela, along with many others, was banned in South Africa – it was a criminal offence to quote him or refer to him in any way. I first read his writing during a visit to Kenya in the 1970s: I bought this book and it confirmed what we had suspected, that he was a democrat, not a terrorist. I smuggled this book into South Africa and it remains a cherished possession: the single most important book I have read in terms of its impact on my views, including my choice to leave South Africa to teach at Waterford Kamhlaba UWC in Swaziland.

Einar Lunde worked as a news anchor for NRK from the late 1960s, before travelling extensively through Africa as a journalist. In the 1970s and 80s, the Nordic governments were supportive of the anti-apartheid struggle in ways in which the United Kingdom and the US were not, in recognizing the moral significance of Mandela and other South African political prisoners. In this way, the small country of Norway had an effect much bigger than its size, in the way its representatives drew attention to the struggle against racism in South Africa. Einar Lunde was such a representative – barred by the apartheid government from visiting South Africa (he tells me he managed to find secret ways into the country nonetheless!) his credibility was obviously recognized, as he was granted an interview soon after Madiba’s release in 1990.

Einar, it is a huge pleasure to welcome you to our nordic Kamhlaba – our little world of magnificently different people!

RCN is asked to put forward four second-year nominations for the Davis-Mahindra International Scholarship each year. This is, in essence, recognition of an outstanding contribution throughout the RCN programme and something for the CV as RCN receives an annual cheque for investment from the Davis Foundation.

Over the past four years we have nominated:

2012-3: Christine Blandhol (Norway) and Tabish Tabish (Afghanistan)
2013-4: Nkanye Gumpo (Zimbabwe) and Augusto Ballón (Peru)
2014-5 Elizabete Romanovska (Latvia), Jasmine Tan (Singapore), Pedro Manuel (Angola) and Sara Löwgren (Sweden)
2015-6 Blessing Chirimbani (Zimbabwe), Dylan DeMarco (USA), John Lihasi (Kenya) and Sophia Hejndorf (Denmark)

We have again been invited to nominate four outstanding current second years.

The Selection Criteria is set by the Davis-Mahindra Foundations / International Office and each Davis-Mahindra International Scholar should:

– Be a proven leader of high character
– Be a very motivated high achiever
– Have great potential

As was the case last year, Advisors were invited by the university office to nominate students from their advisor groups they felt met the selection criteria. The Education Management Team and the University Office have read and discussed the advisor nominations, students’ testimonials / transcripts and records of progress – and considered the criteria set. It has been a predictably difficult decision given the quality of our student body.

We are delighted to announce that the following students have been nominated this year to represent RCN as Davis-Mahindra International Scholars:

Flor Fernández Montes  (Argentina)
Nikita Klimenko (Belarus)
Ravi Manjhi (India)
Johanne Hansen (Norway)

A team of five RCN students – Babba Laminou (Cameroon), Leon Müller (UK), Nikita Klimenko (Belarus), Meriem Fouad (Morocco) and Yash Ramchandani (UAE) – participated in the county final of the ENOVA competition. The competition, held annually, is for raising awareness about sustainable technologies and renewable energy use. Teams from local high schools compete to come up with an innovative and feasible solution for a certain task. The jury marks the teams on their knowledge in the topic, their level of innovation, their entrepreneurial approach and the quality of the presentation.

Our students came up with a solution for a sustainable neighbourhood and created this website as a presentation.

The RCN team became the second in the competition. Congratulations to the team for their amazing performance and for the wonderful solution for the task.