World Youth Peace Summit 2011

Jamie Stagg (Scotland/France, UWC AC 2009-2011)

Left to Right: Jamie Stagg, Marina Dudina, Pjotr Sauer, Colin Powell

Answer Hate with Love – Response to the Norway terrorist attack

Albert Andersen Øydvin (Norway, UWC AC 2010-2012)
A Norwegian student responds to the terrorist attack in Oslo and Utøya on 22 July, 2011.

“Behind everyone that was killed
stand thousands behind.

Stand thousands of others united
in proud and naked despite
Oh, dead comrades,
they will never beat us down”
- Inger Hagerup

Last week has been one of strangest and most painful in my life. Today it’s a week since my home country, Norway, was struck by two dreadful terrorist attacks. Being in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, at the moment for a summer project, two of my Norwegian second years, the rest of the UWC-people here and I have been following the news closely on the Internet. On the 22^nd of July a bomb exploded in the center of Oslo, in the middle of the most important governmental buildings, including the prime minister’s office, the ministry of energy and oil, the ministry of justice, etc. The bomb killed eight people and injured many more seriously. About an hour afterwards a man dressed as a police officer started shooting young people gathered at a holiday island for a political summer camp for the youth organization of the Norwegian Labour Party (AUF). 69 were killed and many many more heavily injured.

UWC AC First Year Camp

This gallery contains 9 photos.

Images from UWC Atlantic College’s annual First Year Camp was held from 23rd to 29th August 2011. Photo Credits: Simon Neenan

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More UWC AC First Year Camp

This gallery contains 9 photos.

More images from UWC Atlantic College’s annual First Year Camp was held from 23rd to 29th August 2011. Photo Credits: Simon Neenan

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UWC AC Second Year Camp

This gallery contains 9 photos.

Images from UWC Atlantic College’s Second Year Camp was held from 23rd to 29th September 2011. Photo Credits: Simon Neenan

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More UWC AC Second Year Camp

This gallery contains 9 photos.

More images from UWC Atlantic College’s Second Year Camp was held from 23rd to 29th September 2011. Photo Credits: Simon Neenan

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Top Posts of the Year 2011

2011 is drawing to a close, and so too is this year at United Words. This has been the best year to date, with over 60,000 page views since January. 2011 also saw the most active month on United Words, were nearly 7,000 people visited the website in November 2011. We’re all geared up for another great year, and just before we turn the corner into 2012, lets look back at the most popular posts of 2011.

1. The UWC Lip Dubs
2. Hogwarts College
3. Some people are gay. Get over it!
4. UWC España
5. LGBT Rights at LPC UWC [UPDATED]
6. Answer Hate with Love – Response to the Norway terrorist attack
7. “Politicians are like diapers, they need to be changed often, and for the same reasons”
8. My Journey is about to begin
9. Global Citizenship in a New Age
10. A UWC experience in Atlantic College

Happy New Year!
United Words

THIMUN 2012

Roshan Melwani (Hong Kong, UWC Maastricht 2011-2013)

The Hague, or rather Den Haag in Dutch, home to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, is not only the judicial capital of the world but also one of the major UN hosting cities. With that in mind, The Hague rightfully and fittingly hosted the largest model United Nations conference in the world: THIMUN. Standing for “The Hague International Model United Nations”, THIMUN is a five-day conference situated in the World Forum, in which 4,000 student delegates from around the globe arrive and unite as one for a week. Luckily enough, two delegations from UWC Maastricht as well as one from UWC South East Asia had the opportunity to attend this simulation, where we represented Kenya, the DSCC and Pakistan respectively. And boy, to say we had an awesome time is a huge understatement.

Hunger and racism

Marlene Richter (RCNUWC 1998)

Picturing hunger and misery in direct connection to ethnic origin is racist and must be considered as an offense.

Basically, what the fight against “Hunger” is about has three different dimensions:

First of all, there are many who won’t admit that they consider poverty of others as a resource. If the poverty of others is great enough, they will accept the worst conditions in mines, factories, coffee plantations and armed forces. There is a German word for this, we call it “Abspeisen”. An employer gives employees food instead of a decent salary, and by doing this, they pacify people. The receivers of the benevolent deeds are even grateful to them and give them their votes.

Marine Conservation in Atlantic College

 ♪‘We are going to MEMS Focus Week!’.  The girl who came from Sushi country turned into Tuna and sang MEMS song on January 21st assembly.  I thought it was really ironic because I was quite sure I consumed most Tuna in whole college! 3 days I engaged with marine environment a lot gave me a huge impact for my thinking.

 MEMS- Marine Environmental Monitoring Service; People basically associate this cool service with Scuba diving session, but sadly they have no idea about what exactly we are doing except that. Actually, we have a lot of activities for saving our ocean. Sometimes, we go out of campus to clean the beach, to gather petitions, to talk and listen to people. On the other hand, we are trying to improve kitchen food for sustainability. Everyone in MEMS is really passionate about own project as well. We feel 4 hours in a week are definitely not enough. Also, the important thing is that our ‘marine environmental monitoring’ happens mainly in our daily life. I hope focus week became one of the good opportunities to know about us.

 I have changed a lot through half year in MEMS.I knew that there are some hard facts about marine environments before coming AC, but I actually tried not to listen to them. We have to catch fish to eat, use ships to carry oil. We enjoy the barbeque in the beach and scuba diving in the sea. Everyone knows that we cannot live without ocean. However it made us feel like escaping from the reality. Human is selfish enough to destroy the environment and just leave it.

 My most shocking experience during Focus Week was watching the movie of ‘the cove’. Before watching it, I had already heard from 2^nd year that Japan kills 6000 dolphins per year, but I didn’t believe at all. Fishing whale in Japan is so famous and I used to eat whale in Japan quite frequently. But I had never heard about dolphins. On the last day of MEMS focus week, I finally got a chance to watch ‘the cove.’ People, Sign, atmosphere in the movie were so nostalgic for me, and soon I found dolphin fishing what happened in the movie was true. I was just so shocked and felt shame that I didn’t know anything about it before. I don’t think many people in Japan know the fact. In addition, I did some research about it and I found there are actually a lot of perspectives about dolphin fishing. It seemed a controversial issue. Japan has to preserve the food culture and food chain in the sea. I understand what they say too. However, as a member of service who saves the sea, personally I believe that dolphin fishing has to be stopped as soon as possible.

  Many fish we are eating now will not exist 5 years later. But Farmed fish does not always become a good solution from aquaculture aspect. Still oceans are contaminated by human like BP oil spill. Focus Week made me think again about relationship between human and ocean.

Our sea is not a food generator, it is the place we are born and grown. We all who live in the earth have a duty to save our home.

MEMS will continue our marine monitoring until people notice how we rely on the ocean.

OCEAN LOVE,

Behalf of Marine Environmental Monitoring Service,

Erica Yokoyama/ Japan 11-13

Crossroad of Politics and Renewable Energy in Morocco

Mohammed Amine Belarbi ( Morocco, 10-12, RCN)

Why Morocco should invest in Solar Power is not a mere question of energy sufficiency but is a deep political statement those who are familiar with the Western Sahara conflict will grasp. Morocco in most of its geography is a sometimes rocky mountain plateau and other times plain fields in the North, while most of the South including the disputed Sahara is a vast desert stretching over kilometers and kilometers. With such a geographic blessing, not only wind power can flourish in the North, but half the country’s area can be covered with Solar panels.

 

Going back to Poland

Almog Zoosman (Israel, UWC AC, 2010-2012)

Going back to Poland was a strong and powerful experience for me; it was like coming back to my cultural roots. My grandma, Lila, was born in Warsaw, Poland. During the war she and her sister, Hana, fled through Europe and Asia, eventually arriving in Israel. Regardless of the personal connection this land holds with my family, I must admit that I simply could not believe some of the landmarks of history that we saw. Walking on the roads which were the sites of the last walks of people 70 years ago was a highly emotional feeling of shame, pride, fear and curiosity, which made me speechless.

Diversity?

Albert Andersen Øydvin (Norway, UWC AC 2010-2012)

Term is coming to an end. IB frenzy escalates. Soon I and everybody else are going to leave this place. It is a bit sad, but most of all it seems right. There is a time for everything, and now is a time to move on. To live lives. Build futures. Change the world. That is not to say that I haven’t had a great time here. I have. It’s been an experience I would give to everyone if I had a chance. I hope I can give it to some. It has changed me, not fundamentally, but still considerably. At the end of these two great years there is still something I want to talk about. Something UWC is lacking, a flaw. I am, in good UWC spirit, going to make a critique. At the moment I think that’s the most valuable I can do for the movement. I want to touch on some dirty words; free will, cultural capital, class, leaders of tomorrow. I want to tear down some of what I call “liberal myths” and hopefully provoke a little bit. Or not. If anyone does get offended that is alright, but this is not meant as a critique of individuals as much as it is meant as a critique of a system.

Faces that need saving…

Tariq Abid (Pakistan, UWC AC 2011-2013)

At this year’s Oscars, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won the best documentary (short category). This was an auspicious moment not only for the makers of the film but also for the nation, as it happens to be Pakistan’s first Oscar award. However, what’s interesting is that Saving Face is much more than a just well-made piece of film, it cuts deep into an imperative issue that faces Pakistani society.

New energy sectors for a New World Order

Mohammed Amine Belarbi ( Morocco, 10-12, RCN)

Energy has long been in the heart of discussions spanning from the corridors in the white house to the modest coffee shops whose owners curse day and night the recurrent cuts in electrical supply during the height of the classic game played in front of a vast crowd of customers. Yet the actual turning point in the energy revolution started a couple of years ago when serious leaps forward were made to bring these talks to life and implement what has long been kept in archives and technical plans. What made this green revolution in the last decade spur and offshoot in the world affairs is not an ethical or considerate incentive towards mother Earth and the future generations, but rather a profit and benefit driven agenda which amounted to the most critical items in the national security concerns. These incentives, which I will try to explore and shed light on, are not any new emerging factors, but are incentives know to societies and governments since the early Babylon and the paranoid empires which made our history class much more enjoyable!

 

Will We Ever Learn?

Dumisile Mtambo (Zimbabwe, UWC AC 2011-2013)

The year 1994 brought to the world a new era to South Africa, in which reverence and hope was shared amongst the people who for the first time in a gruesome history of injustices and hatred exacted upon particular members of our worldly society, sought to coexist as a community that prides itself in its diversity. The ‘rainbow nation’ – as it is called, rose from this dream that was shared and it was so with the revolutionary feats achieved all over the world regarding the rights that mankind in whatever situation who fought and became agitators who sought out change. From all these countless examples of the audacity that resides in humanity, translating into the winds of change that blow into effect that bravery, one ultimately tends to wonder – when will the time come for us to stop fighting?

A sight to behold: the Samoutous changing lives in their Congo clinic

Paolo Danese (Italy, UWC Pearson College 2001-2003)

This post was originally posted at UWC Life.

After attending UWC Atlantic, Joyce went off to the University of Edinburgh to study Medicine. Today, she is about to move from the UK to the Republic of Congo to set up the first and only eye clinic with surgery in the history of the country. Between those two moments, Joyce has already had quite the adventure.

Although she described herself as “an ordinary Hong Kong girl,” she talks with enthusiasm of her backpacking trip around China from college times, her travels to Thailand to volunteer as a primary school teacher (while living in a tree house!), and of her work in Uzbekistan among field medics on the Ancient Silk Road.

Joyce first set off for Africa in 2000: a trip to Gabon among medical missionaries which was both the “realization of a dream” as well as the enduring of hardships that were equally great and daunting. She thought she could not stay in Africa but one day, after a long walk on the beach, she understood that her true calling was to be there. Meeting Henri, her future husband, a native of Gabon, just one day after making that decision just made her choice that much stronger.

“Hong Kong is not affected by, nor involved with human trafficking.”

Dave McCracken (Teacher at LPC UWC)

This post was originally posted at UWC Life. Dave McCracken, a LPC teacher who is a very active and passionate anti-humantrafficking advocate. He is also the teacher leader of Traffick Link, the anti-trafficking group at LPC.

This is a common answer from school children through to top executives. If this were true, why would Hong Kong have a tier 2 rating, putting it among the countries who do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards?

The thought that Hong Kong could be profiting from the selling of people into slavery receives much denial. That there are citizens here involved in the brutalisation of children and adults (mainly women) for profit – surely not! After all Hong Kong has an amazing international reputation and is regarded as one of the safest cities on the planet. The hard truth is that the trafficking of people here is no different to anywhere else. It is such a heinous crime, often involving organised crime and extreme violence, that it is more convenient for politicians and society in general to deny all knowledge about its existence.

“A concise dismissal of the comforting myth that slavery is a thing of the past … and a call to action to all citizens to ensure our governments, communities, businesses, unions, and the charities we support are doing everything possible to finally eradicate slavery from our midst.”

Aiden McQuade, Director of Anti-Slavery International

UWC Students Studying Hard

We have had another Lip Dub, this time from UWC USA with their own version of LMFAO’s Part Rock Anthem.

Other UWC Lip Dubs

KONY 2012: When institutionalizing an idea leads to its demise

Mohammed Amine Belarbi ( Morocco, 10-12, RCN)

When you get your Facebook and email flooded with the KONY2012 videos and articles, you realize shit has just got serious. Massive posts and sharing of the KONY2012 short documentary has indeed stirred countless responses, mostly favorable, yet a frantic minority has been calling out for a conspiracy.

Kony 2012 and the Facebook Generation

Gwenno Hughes (UK, UWCiM 2011-2013)

Thanks to Facebook, the youth of the world are actually showing they care. At least enough to ‘share’ a video that depicts horrors committed by Ugandan Warlord and leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony. Of course, I am talking about the campaign of Invisible Children, Kony 2012, which has the sole aim of making Kony famous while encouraging the U.S to send its troops into Uganda. The validity of this Invisible Children has been much debated and much criticized, but I don’t want to talk about that. To be honest, I don’t really care about the campaign; I feel that it is outdated, pointless, and unnecessary based on the recent reports of Kony’s current condition: hiding in the jungle, destitute and powerless. What I do care about is the affect this campaign has had on the youth of the web.

Occupy IAM

Mohamed Amine Belarbi ( Morocco, RCN 2010-2012)

A lot of tumult has been raised concerning the outraging initiative Itisalat Al Maghrib, the leading telecomunication company, undertook in the last period.
The provider of internet decided to cut the VoIP services and thus thousands if not million of Moroccans are unable to use softwares using this service such as Skype and others.

Pressuring China to Change

Paul Lau Chun Man (Hong Kong/Canada, UWC AC 2010-2012)

China has been increasingly thrust into the international political spotlight, following the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the more recent financial crisis. Then again, China has long been on the receiving end of international campaigns that call for changes to be made internally, especially on the issue of human rights. There are usually two ways of approaching China. The first is the public route, what I like to term ‘Naming and Shaming’, which is the more oft used approach. The second is the more subtle course involving behind-the-scene pressure and diplomacy. It is hard to know exactly how often behind-the-scenes diplomacy is used, and its effectiveness. By definition, this soft power is unknown and more covert.