OPERATION DAY’S WORK

2007_Other No Responses »
Nov 282007

Operation Day’s Work (OD) is a happening that started around 40 years ago, taking place in most Nordic countries. The idea behind OD is for privileged children with a secure education to “give away” one day of school, and to work on getting money to help children in dissadvantaged areas so that these can get a basic education.

In cooperation with local humanitarian organizations OD distributes the money in different countries each year. Last year the collected money (20 million kroner) went for a better education for the young people in Nepal, and this year the countries selected are Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras.

The OD group here on campus participates each year by organizing students to give their one day of voluntary labour (usually by doing assorted jobs for the teachers and other people in the surrounding community), and having an Operation Day’s Work cafe in the evening.

This year the OD group collected 4700 Kroner from both one day free work and Operation Day’s Work cafe.

Posted by Mariano Giampietri at 07:22

Campus Reporters: November

Campus Reporters, EAC No Responses »
Nov 252007

Basically, what we have been doing this term is to try and get this website up and running. We got a lot of help from Sarmad and Xiaohang (who basically designed the site) and Edmund (who taught us a lot about Photoshop and how to fit pictures into this) and so we would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all of it. We would not have gotten this far without them.

Still, we had to organize ourselves on our own, learn to use Word Press, divide the Extra Academic programs among ourselves and make sure that all extra-academicians at this wonderful college of ours remember to tell us, at least from time to time, what interesting things they are involved in. This last bit is the most important one for us now, and next term we will redouble our efforts to make sure that our readers out there have the chance to get to know about everything we have to tell about this place.

Posted by EAP at 23:15

Peer Tutoring: November Report

EAC, Peer Tutoring No Responses »
Nov 252007

Realising the extreme variety in our educational backgrounds, the Peer Tutoring group helps others surmount difficulties. Peer Tutors are firm in their commitment to help students achieve ‘sustainable development‘, but never to simply feed them information or do their homework for them. Although this service is pretty new, the effect is already celebrated.

Samed Nakhle says when describing his encounter with several Peer Tutors: “It is just great! I used to spend loads of time to understand what I missed in classes, but now with the peer tutors it goes just like this!’’ (snaps his fingers). He continues: “they seemed to me very caring, they actually want us to really understand”.

There is much more to say about peer tutors; their actions shout out loud! They are actually sharing experiences through education and strengthening each other, following the UWC mission. Thank you, Peer Tutors!

 

Posted by EAP at 22:52

DROP: November Report

DROP (Do Remember Other People), EAC No Responses »
Nov 252007

Throughout this term we have continued to focus on our aim of raising funds for education, particularly to enable the survival of Raselas Diversity School in Ethiopia. We have done this by organizing cafés and shows here at our college and in Flekke and selling Western Sahara calendars (for more information, visit our website on http://drop.org.googlepages.com/home).

Our regular meeting time is Tuesdays at 5:00 p.m.. We have divided ourselves in different committees (for instance media, communications, cafés, etc.), and each is in charge of different activities, all of which aim to either raising more funds or spreading knowledge about the existence of DROP.

Posted by EAP at 22:40

Bergum Mottak: November Report

Community Service - Bergum Mottak, EAC No Responses »
Nov 252007

The central idea behind the Bergum Mottak EAC is to make life easier for refugees at the Mottak Centre in Førde. We hope to achieve these through activities that we plan together with them. For example there is an English class frequented mainly by old and young women; some of us also visit the kindergarten and play games, paint, read to and generally entertain children from all these countries in conflict. The children have a really good time and they enjoy the experience as much as ourselves.

This EAC takes place every Monday afternoon right after classes. We get on a bus and it takes us one hour to get to the Mottak and one hour to come back. We are usually here by dinner time.

The refugees tell us really interesting stories about their life here, in their countries of origin and through their journeys to this place. For example, recently, an old woman from Russia arrived. She cannot write nor read and much less speak English, so we are trying to teach her all of this. It is a little difficult because she can only speak Russian and has vision problems, so it is only our Russian speakers who can work with her for now.

The teacher responsible for this is Maria Teresa from Argentina who helps us a lot and is working in the English class for the refugees.

Posted by EAP at 22:11

Link Group: November Report

EAC, Link Group No Responses »
Nov 232007

This term the Link Group had a tough start, as we had some difficulties re-establishing last year’s contacts. We almost had to build up the group from zero, as contact information had become obsolete due to students’ graduation and other communication problems. Fortunately, we are finally up and running again.

With the intention of avoiding these problems in the future, one of our first actions this term was to creat a UWC Link Group on facebook, which can be found under that name by any member of the website.

Moreover, right now we are working in collaboration with the other colleges to produce a newsletter to be distributed next term among all the schools. We are writing separate pieces that will be submitted to the Costa Rican college before the end of term. The central idea of this particular newsletter is to look at the things that make each College special from the perspective of current students.

Posted by EAP at 00:28

First Aid Team: November Report

EAC, First Aid Team No Responses »
Nov 232007

The First Aid Team has been very busy this term. We have met every week to practice our skills and continue the training of our members through the hands-on revision of techniques and the performance of indoor and outdoor scenarios. These are taken very seriously, are very carefully set up and everybody’s performance is analyzed by all participants, so that they become worthwile learning experiences.

This term has also seen us get our own space, and we finally have an office to gather in and an attic to store our supplies. The area is being organized and made usable with the help of group members, too. Ideally, we would like it to become not only a meeting place, but we want to make it comfortoble and equip it well enough so that we can have instructional sessions in there.

At the same time, of course, First Aiders have also been fulfilling their regular duties in the student residences and on campus. Not only have we become more knowledgeable of treatments, but we have also had the chance to learn about moulage and other simulation techniques useful in teaching and competitions.

Speaking of competitions, we are also very happy to announce that we have been invited to send a team to the Annual Beograd City First Aid Championship this summer. Ours will be the first foreign team admitted to that event as full participants, and we are already training and working hard for this. It is a lot of extra effort, but we are happy and excited about the many possibilities that this opens for the future.

Finally, at the local level, this term we were especially invited to teach a day-long First Aid Course at Sunnfjord Folkehøgskule in Førde. The course took place on a Saturday in September, and the experience was not only enjoyable and instructive (for us, too!), but it also allowed us to get to know more about the life of other students of our age in this area and around Norway.

Posted by EAP at 00:09

GAS: Gender and Sexuality Group – November Report

EAC, Gender And Sexuality Group No Responses »
Nov 182007

This term the members of the Gender and Sexuality Group have mainly focused on the planning of Rainbow Week, which will take place on the first week of next term. Throughout this past couple of months we have met regularly and different people in the group have been assigned different tasks: some of us were in charge of procuring a guest speaker for Rainbow Week (we have her! and it is a surprise!); some others were in charge of organizing a schedule for the Week, and yet others had to coordinate budget matters and get support from members of other EACs.

Also, faithful to our aim of promoting dialogue about Gender and Sexuality issues, in some of our meetings we have had meaningful discussions about gender roles and social expectations, as well as sexuality and the views of it in different societies. We would like to extend these discussions to the wider community, and that is one of the main reasons of being for the aforementioned Rainbow Week, and of Women’s Week, later in the coming term. We are fully aware that, due to a large array of reasons, some of these topics may be very difficult to discuss for some people. Because of this, many of our organisational meetings have been about trying to come up with ways of creating open and safe situations in which people can truly air all their views about gender and sexuality without being disrespectful nor feeling threatened. We would like to engage everybody in this dialogue, regardless of their ideas, because it is only when when everybody’s allowed to speak freely that everybody’s views can be challenged.

Of course, we do not want to confine ourselves to two weeks in the year, and so we have been showing movies, both in the Auditorium and in the Philosophy classroom. Some of these were followed by public discussions, but even when they were not, they touched on topics that were sure to make people think. The movies that we have shown so far this term are: Mambo Italiano (Canada, 2003), The Crying Game (Ireland, 1992), The Hours (USA, 2002) & Boys Don’t Cry (USA. 1999).

Posted by EAP at 21:54

World Today: Western Sahara

Saharawi Entrepreneurship Committee, World Today No Responses »
Nov 172007

Rabab Amidane is a 22-year-old Saharawi student and human rights activist from Western Sahara. Rabab Amidane visited Norway last summer and made such an impact with young people that she was invited back by the National Union of Students in Norway for a second tour of visits. (Click here for more details on her last visit to Norway.) Because of our several involvements with the Saharawi refugee problem, we were asked if we were interested in being one of the stops in Rabab’s itinerary. We leapt at the opportunity, given her reputation as an eloquent voice for the cause of the Saharawis, and we were certainly not disappointed. The event finally took place on Saturday evening, after Rabab’s plane was grounded in Oslo, and after the subsequent flight that she did catch was diverted to Florø, both on account of bad weather. Those who were present on Saturday evening heard a truly inspiring account of courage in the face of adversity, as well as becoming better informed about what life is like for so many of the inhabitants of the occupied Western Sahara. Illustrated by a series of vivid photographs, as well as a covert documentary made by an American visitor (shortly afterwards deported and accused of being a spy for Hugo Chavez!) Rabab’s talk engaged us in this real, and really resolvable, conflict. It affects people we know on campus, and now someone else whom we feel we know well after hearing her speak and having her here for a day and a half. We are concerned about Rabab’s safety on her return home in early December. The potential to work towards a solution to the Saharawi problem resides in a small way with all of us who really engaged with her, and we are very grateful for her visit. Kip

Posted by EAP at 18:41

Teachers’ Appreciation Day

2007_Other, Other No Responses »
Nov 152007

After a planning period of three weeks, during which personal invitations were sent to teachers, performance numbers rehearsed, and organisational matters attended to, this student initiative was brought to its conclusion this evening.

Teachers were treated to dances, singing and skits performed by the students, in the cozy atmosphere of a café night at the Høegh Centre. All teachers received cakes and other goodies from individual students, plus a bunch of fortune cookies containing appreciation messages from different people around campus. The proceeds of the café went to the Gulu Walk Group on campus.

One of the highlights of the night was the presentation of a comic video made and edited by students who “framed” teachers at different times during the week and filmed their reactions when confronted with unconventional behavior from students.

In the name of all teachers, I want to thank here all of our wonderful students for an amazing –and very funny– evening.

Posted by EAP at 23:30
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