Student trip to North Korea and other happenings
Student trip to North Korea and other happenings
Monday, 24 August 2009
Our 2nd Year students are returning to the campus this weekend from the four corners of the world, ready to start the new academic year at 7:30 am on Monday morning. The staff spent all day on Friday in meetings that included serious consideration and reflection on the College’s strategic direction, philosophy and practices, and at that meeting I was able to congratulate the staff in person for their wonderful effort in helping our students achieve the second best IB Diploma results in the history of the College in the examinations held in May this year. Only in 2003 when SARS hit Hong Kong and our students could not go out and socialise or do their normal service activities were the IB results higher than 2009.
From 11th to 18th August, a meeting was held on campus called the Sino-Japan Youth Conference, which brought together young people from Japan and China (Taiwan as well as the Mainland) to discuss the long-standing tensions between the two countries and to work towards building a deeper understanding. This ambitious venture was entirely organised by our students and young graduates under the leadership of Chishio Furukawa, who graduated from LPCUWC in May 2008. To have the vision for this conference, and then superbly to see through every aspect of the organisation including fundraising, was an extremely impressive effort, and Chishio and his team are to be congratulated.
Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in the conference until the final conference dinner. I was delighted to be asked to speak to the gathered participants, because I had heard such wonderful reports from both Japanese and Chinese students that I wanted to congratulate Chishio and his team and give the participants an opportunity to express their gratitude. That they did so with such enthusiasm was a real tribute to the efforts, dedication and commitment of Chishio and his team.
The reason that I could not participate is that from 11th to 18th August I was leading a group of 20 students from the College on a trip to North Korea. This was the fifth such student trip I had led as part of an initiative to establish links with North Korean schools and educational officials that I hope will eventually lead to North Korean students coming to study in UWCs.
Unlike my previous trips, I took my laptop computer with me on this trip and therefore wrote a daily travel diary to accompany the many photographs I took. Rather than try and summarise the multitude of diverse experiences we had on the trip, I encourage you to set aside some time, and use the links below to access the trip diary and the images:
Trip images home page (accesses 735 images)
Day 1 images (27 photos)
Day 2 Morning images (72 photos)
Day 2 Afternoon images (36 photos)
Day 3 Morning images (48 photos)
Day 3 Afternoon images (99 photos)
Day 4 Morning images (42 photos)
Day 4 Afternoon images (48 photos)
Day 5 Morning images (60 photos)
Day 5 Afternoon images (66 photos)
Day 5 Evening images (111 photos)
Day 6 images (39 photos)
Day 7 images (69 photos)
Day 8 images (18 photos)