uwscambodia

The Students of RCNUWC have been plotting this for some time now, and we are soon going to begin to see the fruits of our labour.

It all began when our college was paid a visit by Chris Howarth, the founder and director of United World Schools a few weeks before the school’s winter break. When he came to see us he told us history.

Chris is a graduate of one of Red Cross Nordic’s sister schools, UWC Atlantic College, Wales, and became a school teacher, back in his native United Kingdom after his IB experience. After many years in the classroom, Chris became disillusioned with his career and decided to pursue something more fulfilling. For him, this became a retreat back to the doctrine of UWC that flows through any respectable alumnus of one of our 13 colleges: the obligation to help your fellow-man.

Soon, Chris had conceived the concept of United World Schools: an organisation whose aims were to:

1. promote cultural sharing between young people of different colleges,

2. to protect indigenous language, customs, cultures and surroundings,

3. to establish a network of “outreach schools” in some of the world’s most poorest regions,

4. improve teaching and management in schools in developing regions,

5. seek scholarships for attendees of a UWS so that in the future they may attend a United World College,

6.  support the UN’s Millennium Goal of “Education for all by 2015”.

It was decided to start the project in one of the most indigenous regions of Cambodia. So far this pilot project is underway and proving to be more than what one could simply label as “successful”.

So when he came to see us in December, it most certainly is no surprise that so many of us were so keen to get on board.

Several of us sat down with Chris and began to talk about details, dates, finance and the like so that we could have a good enough idea as to what we needed to do to help set up our own project.

RCN is cooperating with Li Po Chun UWC, Hong Kong and Atlantic College to expand the pilot projectand to raise awareness of the importance of the work of the schools we are helping to build. Only able to speak of the work of RCNUWC, I shall share some of your work and our action plan for the coming months and years as RCN plots to become an involved and integral part of UWS.

We have established a firm contact link with Chris and have split our group into several separate committees who will be dealing with various aspects of teaching and school life. Our students will be going to the school this June to work in the school itself.

We have a focus in several aspects of life on the UWS school grounds: logistics, arts, sports, music and the environmental aspect of life, very important as the school is situated in the middle of the Cambodian rainforest. These other aspects other than strictly book-focussed, hardcore academics will allow UWS students to broaden their horizons and love their time at school.

The project is still very much in its infancy as we are still speaking about the broader focus of the project, but we have a dedicated crew who have various types of expertise and are going to use this in various different ways to build our project and to plant the seeds and let our project flourish.

By Jana Foxe (1st Year Student, Ireland, Red Cross Nordic United World College)