Student Initiatives in an Era of Tragedies
Student Initiatives in an Era of Tragedies
Sunday, 18 May 2008
With students from more than 80 countries, LPCUWC is like a world in miniature. Therefore, it is not surprising that when suffering occurs somewhere in the world, our students become acutely aware of it – far more aware, in fact, than most of the world’s population. Being articulate and well-informed young men and women, with a keen sense of idealism, tragedies and suffering are not just academic playthings – they are profound issues that affect friends and families of fellow-students. And so, with ongoing chronic tragedies such as conflict in the Middle East, the impact of global warming, human trafficking, and so on, combined with recent acute tragedies such as the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China, our students have more than enough ammunition to develop a deep pessimism.
It is to their credit that the response of our students to the overload of bad news in the past couple of weeks has not been pessimism, but positive efforts to help. Although fully involved in their final IB Diploma examinations, our students have found the time and made the effort to raise funds for those affected by the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China. These actions demonstrate what special and wonderfully atypical students we have at LPCUWC!
One sad aspect of the tragedies in Burma and China has been that the most vulnerable members of society – children – have been the main victims. In the Sichuan earthquake, it was the collapsed schools that claimed most of the lives. In the Irrawaddy Delta of Burma, the orphaned children who survived the cyclone are now vulnerable to abuse and the recruitment as labourers, sex workers or child soldiers. As educators who work with youth every day, it is deeply distressing to witness the suffering of young children, especially when it is children more than anyone else who deserve to be protected.
On a happier note, and closer to home, we are about to commence the final week of our academic year, and the final week of schooling for our 2nd Year students who will graduate next weekend. As we often say, the two years of life in a UWC is just the preparation for living the values of UWCs in the decades ahead. For our 2nd Year students, ‘life-beyond-UWC’ starts in just one week.
For many (in fact, a majority) of our students, this will mean going to a university in the US, often with the generous support of a Davis-UWC Scholarship. I was reminded of the significance of the Davis-UWC scholarships program during this week when I received an e-mail from Qiamuddin Amiry, a student from Afghanistan who graduated from LPCUWC just three years ago in 2005. He drew my attention to a news report on the Davis Scholarships that had just been aired on US television (MSNBC), featuring both himself (Qiam) and interviews with Shelby Davis, parts of which were recorded at our sister College, UWC-USA in New Mexico.
Qiam is certainly living up to the expectation we have of our graduates that they will use their experiences at LPCUWC to make a difference for the benefit of others in the world after they graduate. As shown in the video (see link below) he is presently co-ordinating a program known as the ‘Afghan Student Initiative’ to raise funds to support 20 more students from Afghanistan to study outside their country.
The video provides an excellent overview of the Davis-UWC Scholarships program, which has so far provided about US$100 million to support UWC students, both while they attend UWCs and after they graduate and attend universities in the US. More details of the Davis-UWC scholarships can be seen HERE.
In the video clip, Shelby Davis makes the comment that one of the trademarks of a UWC graduate is that they do things at a young age that most people wouldn’t think of doing until mid-career, if ever.
We have several good examples of that at LPCUWC at the moment. During the forthcoming summer holidays, a team of LPCUWC students will work under the auspices of the United World Colleges and Princeton University to organise a ground breaking conference in Amman (Jordan) called ‘Youth Initiative for Progress in Iraq’, which will bring together students from the US and Iraq to learn about one another’s cultures, discuss relations between the United States and Iraq, draft a youth policy regarding the current conflict for submission to world leaders, and plan initiatives that will bring the youth of each nation closer together as well as formulating ongoing, sustainable, youth-led projects that will aid in the development process of Iraq. Details of the initiative can be seen HERE.
Student initiatives to bring together young people and build peace look set to continue into the future at LPCUWC. Our IFP (Initiative For Peace) group is planning its next conference on ‘Peace in Kashmir’, which will bring together young people from India and Pakistan on the campus of Mahindra UWC in India during the summer break. Another team of students has already begun to plan a conference on Sino-Japanese relations, which will bring together students from China and Japan on the campus of LPCUWC in summer 2009.
I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am of our students when I see these wonderful student initiatives flourishing, and continuing to flourish after graduation as seen by Qiam’s example.
Please watch the video of Qiam Amiry and Shelby Davis by using the link below.
The College welcomed Yang Minghua from Datong High School in Shanghai yesterday. We held discussions about an exciting initiative to help our students with learning Chinese language, and then went for a roof-top evening stroll