24 minute read
Playing to Make each other Good
– geograf og kjærleik på Teachers Hill gjennom 25 år
On Solli plass in Oslo, the stately brick building that today houses the National Library was once the University’s library. In 1994 there was a Ghanaian sitting in the reception there. Daniel Toa-Kwa pong’s job was to develop a security system at the University’s library. Tere he sat now, reading in a Norwegian advertisement publication. By chance he stumbled onto an ad.” Red Cross United World College is hiring!”. Only weeks later, Rektor Tony Macoun came to interview Toa-Kwapong in Oslo. They spoke long and well about their common subject – geography - and the position of the social sciences. “The world is controlled by people with a background in social sciences who remind each other. This contributes to Toa-Kwapong’s decision to come to Haugland and work with a subject called Development studies. He had a single condition: that his wife Barbara would be convinced to join.
– I realized that working for RCN would be a joint venture for Barbara and me.
Soon enough they arrived at Teacher’s hill with their two small children. Daniel sets up the subject Development Studies in collaboration with geographer Tony Macoun.
– I have become increasingly aware of the benefits that this subject could get through impulses from the local environment. We have the largest lab of
– I realized that working for RCN would be a joint venture for Barbara and me.
1. Hari on the voyage to Svalbard with Future Talks.
2- Barbara together with Kadiatou Momoh and Haja Ba in 2016.
3. Summer Course for new students in 2014.
all. Everything around here is a geographer’s lab. I am excited about the new situation with our county merging into the new Vestland County. I believe in a tighter bond between the College, the county, and the entire Nordic Region. I am happy that one of the conditions I gave myself for being a student in Oslo was to learn the Norwegian language and history. I believe the students will benefit from learning more about, for example, the oil sector in this country. What is it that makes Norway so especially smart with regards to oil riches compared to other countries who have been extracting just as much oil?
Te geography in it all. RCN was built on an approximately 300 acres large area of land near the Flekke fjord in Sunnfjord in what used to be Sogn & Fjordane, today a part of Vestland county. Haugland is located ten minutes’ drive from the municipality’s center Dale, forty minutes’ drive from Førde airport and three hours from Bergen. It takes twenty minutes to drive to the nearest ski center. One reaches the archipelago by the coast in just under an hour with a boat from Haugland. When the college opened the population went up to almost three thousand. Since then, the number has stabilized around 2800 inhabitants. One feature of Fjaler differs from most other municipalities’ demographic development: immigrant statistics. In 1990 the municipality counted a total of 17 immigrants, 11 from Europe and the rest from North America. By 2000, the number of immigrants had escalated to nearly three hundred, with 149 from Europe, 53 from Asia, 28 from Africa and 38 from all over America. All of these did not necessarily come as a consequence of RCN. Some l immigrants were recruited by the Nordic Artist’s center in Dale. But overall, the typical RKC-people are persons born abroad to parents born abroad or else Norwegian-born with immigrant parents. There were always more men than women, despite health and social services employing most of them. Teaching is the second most popular employment. Fjaler has a long tradition of education.
– Yesterday I asked my students if it was the social scientist or the natural scientist who had the most to contribute. They answered natural scientists. I had to object.” Natural scientists are dedicated to gathering
1. In 2013 Maja Siu received honour from the Fondo de la Mariposa in Nicaragua, handed over by rocker Åge Aleksandersen.
2. Art classes have always been a hub for personal development and learning. Here with teacher Nikki de Marko in 2020.
3. Melvin Gonzales representing his home country El Salvador and the College during Ridderrennet in 2015.
4. Lights during the dark season.
empirical data for the lab,” I pointed out how important social sciences are when it comes to tackling the changes we face in the world. It helps us understand how different countries and cultures think and do research. What we in the West call a weed is called a plant in China. The Chinese do not seem to use the world problem the same way as we do in the West. When our child is particularly active, I will not therefore call it a nervous or problem child. I buy the child a football or tennis racket. In China the ‘weed’ has laid the foundation for scientific discipline called plant medicine.
Teamwork in a changing world Barbara has a background as a social scientist, and when asked how school life has changed over the years, she answers:
– I can see how students feel the changes in our time. The technological tools were meant to create safety, but I believe that they also become a stress factor. Dealing with the countless possibilities that technology offers, can create more work and will in fact, rob adolescents of their time. In the beginning of the school’s history, the only internet activity was printing out emails and distributing them into letter boxes.
– I can remember how important regular mail was. There were daily mail hand-outs at lunchtime. That was the one moment for contact with the outside world. Now students spend time on the net and social media in addition to all the other demands that were there from before.
– But they do not have to take a long trip to the bank in Dale to sort out their finances?
– Yes, you are right there. But by and large, I believe the technological development of the internet has been a burden. We are always available unless we switch our phones off. We do not do that though. So, the big challenge here at RCN is how to administer our attention in time, says Barbara. Daniel is only partially agreeing. He points out that it could be seen
Latin America Show.
as a new possibility instead of a problem, and explains how he can use mobile phones actively during his classes:
– We might need to know the exact population of China. It is only a click away. That is very convenient. But I am strict regarding my student’s attention. For example, I let my students know that I would never check my emails if we were together. They understood that they were expected to be present both physically and mentally, and that that is how things go. One of the positives with the new times is the willingness to see the whole person for admission to university.
– We rarely use expressions like the student did not pass. But even if somebody has low grades for the IB-exam15, they can still get accepted at an American university, says Barbara. They have shown a willingness to perceive the whole person. Nordic Universities do not take any extracurricular activities into account when assessing students for entry. It is all strictly grade based. This is unfortunate because it is the extracurricular activities that build personality. Nonetheless, students will still need decent grades to get accepted. I believe some of our students get a bit confused by this, says Daniel, and adds: Many here start at a level five English. When the highest level is set at seven, they are already close to being fluent. Other students begin close to zero and have an extremely steep learning curve. They will require a full year to get going, then blossom and succeed as well as the others. We have many positive examples of this.
– It has a lot to do with culture, says Barbara: We see that the people who come from ambitious backgrounds have this idea that they need top grades to get into their field of choice. We are less focused on grades and rather see the student as a full human being. Representatives from North American universities come here to recruit young talents with focus on their potential. Daniel remembers a student who failed to get a full IB-diploma but still got into university. She had an average of 3,5 the first term, but a year later the average rose to five. Now she has a great responsibility working for a lawyer’s office in Quebec, explains Daniel. Barbara nods and says: “I remember an Italian boy. He was’ streetwise’ and believed that he was not meant for an academic career. He managed really well and is today an outstanding
15 IB-karakterar går frå 1 til 7. Ein får karakterar i alle faga.
Daniel in 2016 - say no more! entrepreneur who works with motivating and helping the youth.
Daniel likes to tell his students about the pioneer class. How did they make such an impression on him? They felt an ownership for the school. They took initiatives. Daniel tells the story about the garbage cans over here. Today, the bins are in the shelter from the house. When the school started, there was no house there. But the wind blew just as hard- the bins toppled, and the trash went flying. When the teachers came down from Teachers Hill for the lessons, they found their students picking up trash.
– The students quite simply possessed natural leader qualities. They took initiatives and took the reins, says Daniel, and adds: -Tony Macoun quoted Kurt Hahn: One should not tell a student that she must be part of something. But rather, that she is needed.
– That is why there were a minimum of rules in Tony’s time. There was guidance, Barbara remembers.
Now the married couple is gathering their belongings and will head up to Teacher’s Hill. I noticed Daniels’ red and black Arsenal bag, with a Toa-Kwapong embroidered on it. That was a personal gift he got from a
1. Chris Hamper shows the way during the TEDx event in 2017.
2. Good friends during project week 2008.
3. The Show must go on - in front of an enthusiastic crowd.
student from the first-generation. Nathan- that was the student’s name-brought it to a reunion. He had fond memories of Toa-Kwapong’s living room in the mid-nineties. They would sit there and watch football on TV. They supported the same team, Arsenal. Barbara and Daniel play on the same team at home as well as at work - even though she sympathizes with a different team in red. The aim is to play to make the other good.
Te Survivors - Realizing your Potential.
When Edwin Gonzales was fourteen, he lost both arms and injured his eye, face, and head. After seven years- four spent in Norway- he has a bachelor’s degree in pedagogy and works as a teacher in his homeland
Nicaragua.
– Edwin, he reaches out an arm that stops just before the elbow joint. It is sufficient for a handshake - or an arm shake. He turns his arms around and takes his jacket off. A magnetic card showing his name and the logo of his seminar falls to the floor. Gonzales points, and explains simply and pedagogically how to put it on again. “You are a good instructor!”, I say. Gonzalez corrects:” I am a teacher.” One day Edwin was fourteen and home alone. The door to the apartment was half open, and there he saw something new and shiny. What was it? Edwin went over and picked up something that looked like a can of shoe polish. When he lifted it up, he got a sneaking feeling. He put the thing back, took a step back - and then it exploded. Shortly after Edwin regained consciousness and noticed somebody’s presence. He was aware that he was being carried over into a car. He was driven from the little village where he lived with his mother, to the hospital in the capital. There, they saved his life. But he had lost one eye. His arms from the elbow joint down were gone and he sustained serious fractures to his skull. It was only on the 20th day at hospital that Edwin himself realized his arms were gone. A year later his sight returned to the damaged eye. Six years later he would ski 20 km at the Ridderrennet race and be a snorkeling instructor for camp school students. At eighteen, he finds out that he has been chosen for a stipend to study IB at UWC RCN in Norway.
This evening Gonzales is among the international representatives of Red Cross-organizations that will participate in a panel debate against landmines. He is there as a witness, one to tell how he survived and came back to life after the bomb explosion.
– The best I can do on these occasions is to show, not just tell.
– How do you give thanks by doing?
– I have been told - and have experienced - that one learns best by teaching others. I came to RCN with very poor English. At best, I could say ten words, “fine thank you’ and was able to introduce myself. Everything else was laborious and frustrating. At the same time, it helped me understand that dwelling on fear would help no one. If I do not challenge myself, I will continue being scared. My fear was mostly of meeting people. For a while I would not go out but rather hide. I was afraid of doing such and such a mistake, to not get my jacket on, that everything would go wrong. But slowly and surely the language came. I had satisfactory answers for the questions people asked me. Every evening I checked my status: how was I feeling? I gave myself specific tasks like going to the common room. I made sure to never speak Spanish, not even to the other Spanish speakers. I was so eager to learn English. I knew well who I was - a Latino. But I did not learn the language to hide my identity, but rather to be understood. Language lifted me out of my isolation.
– My first challenge was to talk about my physical condition. I had to accept myself and needed acceptance from those around me as well. I had to learn to say: I cannot do this. Can you help me get the jacket on? Dr. Eirik Fismen and others at the Haugland Center taught me a great deal. Because while I – along with all the others – need to teach myself how to discern the limits for what I can do, there is good reason to celebrate all the things that we in fact are able to do. It is often more important to focus on resources. I learned to tell myself that I can do anything - even building a house.
Aya Bahij tests the snow during “friluftsveka” in 2015.
When actions speak louder than words Gonzalez makes a gesture. Even with his arms’ stubs, his body seems unusually eloquent.
– Because learning English was so important to me, I wanted to help others learn English, back home in Nicaragua. He has recently explained something to me in his pedagogical way; how I could help him with the fallen nametag.
– I believe that my interest in teaching started with Angie, my English teacher. She believed in my talents - and all I could achieve despite my injuries. She taught me English first and then gave me some tools to teach English. First it was more like conversational training than a lesson. But after a while I took on more ambitious tasks. I took them very seriously. I was no longer a student who could go crazy and do all those student things.
– So, you stayed in Flekke when your fellow students left?
– In total I spent four years in Norway. One year to prepare and learn English. Followed by two years for the IB. Then I stayed on, first a term at the University College in Sogn og Fjordane, before getting an engagement as an assistant teacher at RCN.
– Then you went to Nicaragua to teach English. Why?
– Life put me in this situation that made it possible to teach English to Nicaraguan children. So, I started collaborating with many organizations, but for various reasons this proved difficult. I worked among others with blind children. Like many others I depend on the help of others’, like for opening doors. And now I talk figuratively. I have no problem with actual door handles. I went straight to individual people.” I speak and write English. Do you want to learn?”, I’d enquire. For about two years I worked like that, for very little pay. It is tricky surviving in a country with so few possibilities. But if you tell yourself that it is going to stay hard the rest of life, you will not get far. I still work to improve the structure of my lectures, so I can reach out to more.
– You are in Norway to talk at a landmine conference hosted by the Foreign Ministry representing the Red Cross and the school. Is this a common job for you?
1. From the summer course in 2014. Peter Wilson has been key to building up this preparatory course for students with limited English proficiency.
2. IN 2008 student Carl Oscar Teien took the initiative for the Gulatinget Youth Parliament. Here he shows the letter addressed to prime minister Jens Stoltenberg with Kai Grieg from the UN Association.
3. Kayaking on a summer day.
Teachers and employees from all over the world come to work and live at the College. Here Gudmundur Hegner Jonsson has just arrived as new Rektor, together with his family in 2018.
– No, and it is my first time back in Norway since leaving in 2015. I am very happy to get the chance to be an ambassador right here.
Gonzales was the first participant in the Survivors of Conflict- program at RKN. Did he have to endure teething problems in the early stages of the program? Was he able, as a pioneer, to mold it?
– I might be able to access my own resources more directly now, says Gonzales - four years after his RCN-experience:
– I learned how to influence and overcome physical challenges. And I now see how much my time at Haugland benefitted me. My message is: Open the doors! Let even more students from marginalized backgrounds in! But watch out- do not underestimate these students! Remember to expect just as much of them as of the others. Expectations are to be stated in concrete, shared exercises that the students can master. Surely, we all enjoy mastering our task at hand.
Giving Tanks – Enabling survivors of war and conflict and at the same time providing them with an education that will take them further in life, is one of the most rewarding tasks we have as an educational institution.
Arne Osland is clearing glasses from a table in the lobby at the Hub Hotel. This unpretentious Director of Development at RKN finds his own way to fit in with the ornamented lounge. Osland is seemingly laid back, yet constantly on the alert. The formal program of the global hub conference The Oslo Review
Conference on a Mine -Free World is wrapped up for the day. But when the rows of chairs in the lecture room have been cleared out and the speakers have left the podium, Osland’s work begins. He represents the schools here. And he is also the one who organized Edwin Gonzales’ visit to Oslo, and later to RCN. Gonzales is mingling with the crowd of people. Osland says he just saw Gonzales talking to a new group of friends.
Osland and RCN, started working with landmine
victims in 2009. Børge Brende was the General Secretary for the Norwegian Red Cross Norway and came to Haugland to visit both institutions there. Brende was shown the rehab center and the College, and their collaboration. Then the idea popped up to give scholarship places for victims of war to Haugland, to give them rehabilitation according to need and an international education. – Supporting victims of landmines was a strategic priority for Norway as a nation and for the Norwegian Red Cross. In that sense, we went in for a program that the Red Cross was already heavily involved with, says Arne Osland. Together we made sure that the project was supported by the Foreign Ministry.
With the school’s ties to the Red Cross, the principle of equality is paramount. This is not only about
Nothing wrong with the technique. On the way to Galdhøpiggen with the Norwegian Red Cross in 2018.
culture, religion, and nationality, but also physical ability. This might also be called a Nordic core value.
–When starting with Survivors of Conflicts, initially there was some resistance from nervous employees. This was partly expressed as a concern for people’s rights. They should be entitled to the right level of support. Did we manage to? The doctor at the Haugland Center Erik Fismen made an appeal to us in a staff meeting. The students were able to perform a lot of their daily routines without personal assistance. But at the same time, one must not underestimate the dynamic of living five persons together in a room. Therefore, it is necessary for those living there to control their urine. Over the years we have gathered knowledge about who will benefit from a place here and we inform the national committees that the candidates must be functionally independent to come to us.
– What hope do they leave RCN with?
– Firstly, we must consider how we do not give aid and assistance to our students where they cannot expect it later. In Norway we enjoy the support that the Assistance Central can give us and are excited when amputee students return with improved foot prostheses that give them a much-improved function. But still, we always have to ask what is the optimal use of aids in the long run.
Expanded Criteria The program known today as Survivors of Conflict, started out as a project for landmine victims. Our focus on survivors of landmine accidents remains even if the criteria for inclusion have been expanded. Today it applies to all students who in one way or other, have been seriously affected by war or conflict in their homeland. The first generation for the project came in 2011, and it was Edwin Gonzalez from Nicaragua and Tesfahunegn Hailu Sina (Tesfa) from Ethiopia. Both were recommended to us by the ICR Special Fund for Disabled headquarters in their respective regions of Latin America and Africa. Was it such that RCN had to trust the assessments made by those who identified these boys as candidates for the program?
– Yes, to some extent, ICRC Special Fund for the
1. Cooperation is essential to avoid a mess.
2. Sara Al Hussainat, from Iraq, the first female participant in th eSoc Programme, in 2017.
3. Skiing - always a source for joy!
.:: .. ,. p.
Disabled had through its network been able to single out these two as the best candidates, answers Osland:
– In Testa’s case, it was a lucky coincidence: I had traveled to UWC’s regional conference in Africa hosted in his hometown, Addis Ababa that year. I got to interview Testa there, together with representatives from UWC Ethiopia. In Gonzalez’ case his contacts emphasized the active voluntary work he’d done for the organization for the blind and partially sighted. The main goal with SOC is to make the young ones be active participants in their societies. Then Gonzales arrived at RKN with his many talents. When he got the task of joining the diving instructors for camp school, we saw that he had his own way with kids. Edwin could not swim when he joined us, and there he stood as a self-confident instructor with flippers and a snorkel. After the exams he got a place at the University College in Sogn & Fjordane where he studied to become an English teacher. But there were problems with his student loan, and he then came back to RKN as a volunteer for half a year.
– RCN gives a lot of support to the participants while they live in Norway. But what happens afterwards? Do you have the means to follow up?
– We have regular contact with Edwin. He got his bachelor’s degree in English and is now following up with pedagogy and in his work life. Edwin’s is a success story and a source of inspiration.
Pioneer
What did RKN learn about itself from the two first
Survivors of Conflict students?
– It became even clearer to us that we had to create a better academic foundation those of our students who have gaps in their educational background, says Osland:
– We saw this need in other students as well, for example some of those who came from refugee backgrounds or those who grew up in SOS Children’s villages. With the foundation year, we transform the first year into a preparatory period for those who need it. This is essential in my opinion if we continue recruiting students from refugee backgrounds. Here we do what UWC does best, which is bringing together and developing young persons who together constitute a deliberate diversity. This helps watch
and of us to grow. For the students themselves it is important to experience mastery in everyday life in the residences, in the extra academic program and in the classroom. And consider how it affects the other students who can share their experiences with the ones who have had such a tough start in life. This is ‘deliberate diversity’ at its best.
As we continue talking, the hotel lobby is getting busy. There are lots of people walking by with the landmine conference tag on their lapel. Over nine hundred people have come from all over the world to represent different organizations. United World College has only two representatives: Osland and Gonzales. I ask him whether this kind of conference is typical for his life as the Director of Development at RCN. – Yes and no. In Magne Bjergene’s spirit, RCN endeavors to be involved across all sectors. I often take part in conferences that are far from my field of expertise. Most people here work full-time with damage limitation for war and conflict. RCN has always had the courage to get involved in work that is relevant for our humanitarian, Nordic and environmental mandate.
– The conference endeavors to limit the destruction created by the garbage of war. When the troops pull out of conflict zones, they leave landmines behind. Thousands of civilians are injured or die as a consequence. Edwin is one of those who got back on his feet again. Next week he will be back in Nicaragua at his demanding task of teaching and completing his master’s degree.
A view to Alden during Project Week in 2016.
Sunniva Roligheten og Geireann Lindfield Roberts in playful activity, the summer of 2018.
