Cells of innovation, catalysts of change
Cells of innovation, catalysts of change
For about the same cost as sending one student for two years to a United World College, it would be possible to build a new primary school in an East African country such as Tanzania or Malawi.
That simple fact highlights the responsibility that rests upon the shoulders of every new student who will commence studies in a United World College when term begins next week. The sponsors who provide the scholarships to send students to United World Colleges do so because they believe that there is greater potential to change the world for the better by sending one student to a UWC than building a new primary school in a poor nation. That is a sobering reality and an awesome challenge for every UWC student!
I passed on this challenge yesterday afternoon when I met with the 13 new students who will represent Hong Kong in overseas United World Colleges from next week. This year, one Hong Kong applicant was selected to go to Atlantic College in Wales, one was selected to attend Mahindra UWC in India, three will go to Adriatic College in Italy, two will attend Armand Hammer UWC in the United States, one will be our pioneer student to the new UWC in Bosnia-Herzegovina, three will attend Pearson College in Canada and two will attend Red Cross Nordic UWC in Norway. We met together with almost 50 young Hong Kong UWC alumni at the Graduates Restaurant at Hong Kong University.
Each of these 13 students can look forward to her or her own unique and life-changing experience in the coming two years. But with that experience comes the responsibility to repay the investment of the scholarship in the years and decades ahead, as well as the responsibility to be an effective ambassador for Hong Kong in the international community of which they will become a part. Hopes and aspirations are certainly high, and I really look forward to keeping in contact with our new ambassadors in the years ahead - and in the case of several of them, catching up personally when I visit their campuses for UWC Board meetings during the coming years.
When I spoke to the new students, I mentioned that becoming part of the UWC Movement is not a two-year experience, but a lifetime commitment. That reality was highlighted for me last night when I attended the 10-year reunion of LPC graduates in our College canteen. Although I knew none of the 40 or 50 graduates who came when they attended the College from 1995 to 1997, it was obvious that the shared bond of their UWC experience was still deeply tangible after all these years - why else would they have chosen to fly to Hong Kong from every inhabited continent of the world especially for the reunion?
These two gatherings - one with young people who are about to embark on their UWC experience, and the other with graduates who are now living the UWC ideals in their daily lives in all countries of the world - highlighted yet again for me what special and unique places the United World Colleges are. To use the simple and eloquent words of the UWC President, Nelson Mandela, “That is the virtue and the strength of the UWC - it provides small but powerful cells of innovation, catalysts for change, breaking barriers of habit and opening up broader vistas of experience for both pupils and educationalists.”
Sunday, 12 August 2007
A view of the Red Cross Nordic United World College campus in Norway, taken during my visit there in October 2004