Spring 2014 Edition
SNAPSHOTS
Table of Contents Message from the Head of College............... p.2 Learning to say goodbye ................................... p. 3 Holi: The Festival of Colours ............................. p. 5 The moment you know ...................................... p. 7 Three Alumni Reflect on their on- going Commitment to India ...................... p.9 Publication and Design by Ra誰sa Mirza
MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD OF COLLEGE I write this as the buses are carrying first year students off campus and second years are preparing to say goodbye to the community that has become their home and to faculty who have become their friends. First of all, hearty congratulations to our graduates of 2014, now alumni. I have little doubt that your experiences of UWC Mahindra College will shape the rest of your life to a greater or lesser extent and influence the various communities around the world that you will belong to. Welcome to a movement of 60,000 leaders who we, and those who give scholarships, hope will contribute to a more peaceful and sustainable world. This past semester has been one in which we have been able to grapple with what a community is and how to build it. Through workshops, discussions, debates, students and faculty have been able to speak up and out about concerns they may have but also to contribute towards building a system and structure which will allow for increased transparency and potential for involvement. Our students have been able to experience change and understand that transformation requires sustained effort from everyone in order to change. Transformation is never easy! Rather, it is a process that starts and continues and must be engaged with. To our first years, we hope that you take the time to relax, reflect and rejuvenate throughout the summer. We look forward to welcoming you back to a much greener and wetter Mulshi Valley and to a college that is making a transition. I look forward to working with you on the structures and processes which will create transparency and ensure accountability is applicable for all members of the community. I am certain we can make this transformation but it requires all involved to understand and work towards a more responsible and more idealistic and community focussed future. A sincere thanks to my colleagues, especially those who are departing this year. I hope that your time on the Hill has been one that you look back upon fondly. Thank you all for your dedication to the students and to this community of which we are all a part. Finally, a thank you to parents for trusting us with the education of your children. You are part of our community and family and we hope that the UWC experience has been as transformational for you. Please stay in touch. Well done all around! Have a great summer! Pelham Lindfield Roberts Head of College
Learning to say ‘Goodbye’ A few weeks ago, we were still in class, the sweat dripping from our brows as our minds senselessly attempted to retain the last bits of information and advice given to us by our teachers, while simultaneously calculating how many minutes left until the next free block, what was on the menu for lunch, and how we were going to manage to turn in all of those IA’s (Internal Assessments) before midnight. The last fortnight has passed at a mind-boggling speed, and suddenly it is official: we are in the last stretch of our two years at MUWCI. Graduation is approaching and now the time has come to check off the last couple of things on our MUWCI bucket lists. To talk to everyone we promised ourselves we would have a conversation with, to watch the sunrise on Internet hill and to savor our friends and surroundings. This results in mixed feelings, as some have been counting down the days while others are wishing they could do something to freeze time. I, personally, am somewhere in between. There is so much emotion involved in leaving this place, it’s difficult to decide exactly where I stand, to be honest. On the one hand, it is exciting to think that next year will be the beginning of an entirely new phase, with new people and places and an opportunity to start fresh. On the other, the knowledge that this is the end of a unique chapter of our lives is enough to get any second year thinking. It raises questions about what we have accomplished in our two years, how we have grown, whether or not we have gotten what we wanted to get out of this, what we regret/don’t regret…the list goes on. Because, the truth is, no matter how we have experienced our time at MUWCI, we are suddenly forced to acknowledge that we will never be able to replicate this experience again. We will never again live in the same community, with the same surroundings and conditions—even during our future reunions and meet-ups, it is not something that can be recreated.
Very soon, we will be hearing our names spoken through a microphone as we step onto a stage to accept our certificates, the same stage on which we have danced during the first and second year shows, performed on during MUWCI Fests, and sauntered down in the Fashion Shows. Tears will be shed, the goodbyes will be heart wrenching, and then, before we are able to process it, it will all be over. Whether it is one day or three months after graduation, we will be stepping on an airplane to go home, and we won’t be UWC students anymore—we will be alumni. The concept is one that is nearly impossible to grasp, and it creates a strange feeling on campus. It’s an air of anticipation and apprehension. Of excitement and sadness. It’s paradoxical, to say the least. We acknowledge that it’s time to start looking at things in perspective, but at the same time, in some ways it feels like we are still so far from the end as we continue to study hard and procrastinate harder, to sleep through the heat and spend our free time cooking, talking, and adventuring with our friends until the early morning hours. There is no way to sum up the feeling that our time up on the hill is almost through. The emotions as our time is running out are just as unique as every individual’s experience here. All I can say is that, I truly hope that we can make the most out of our last time together. In the scheme of things, it seems like the blink of an eye, but in reality there is still time to do the things that we love and be with the people that we care about. There is still time to come together as a community and celebrate the reasons why we are here, and to realize how lucky we are to have been a part of this (as Doug calls it) “petri-dish” of cultures, opinions, ideologies, and traditions. Don’t be afraid to give it your all until the very last moment, because before we know it, there won’t be a chance to do so anymore. By Elize van der Laan (the Netherlands/Class of 2014)
Holi: The Festival of Colours
Holi is famous all over the world as a colourful festival. We had our own fun here on campus celebrating this wonderful festival- a good opportunity to wind down and get messy!
The moment you know
Finding out about UWC around the world I grew up in this little town in Northern Norway in the 1980s where all my classmates were white and had the same puffy winter jacket that looked like a sleeping bag. At one point during a lab experiment in high school, I realized that I had to do something drastic, and when I heard about UWC, I told my mom I needed to apply. The options, as I recall, were Wales and Swaziland, but my mother was clear: It would not happen. My family did not have much money (this was before the oil boom), so there was no way they could send me off to boarding school. But things have a weird way of manifesting themselves if you just wait, and if somehow that thing fits you like a hat, eventually it returns to smack you in the head like a boomerang, like when you are freezing your behind off somewhere even more arctic than your home town. And so, two years ago when I was an immigrant in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, I came across a vacancy for an English teacher at the UWC of India. This time there was no mother to stop me, and about a month later I was hired via Skype. And that’s how, TWENTY years later, I could embark on my UWC experience: The adult version which includes your own little house with a garden, travel money and extra snacks for lunch, and the privilege to decide every day what to do in in class. Henning (Teacher of English & Theatre/Norway)
I was doing a project about the importance of unity and diversity in education when I found the “United Words” blog, written by students from Atlantic College. From a young age it disturbed me how education was un-educating us and was lacking in core values, and as an alternative I wanted to start my own school. What joy it gave me to know that my vision had been put in practice! I was so grateful that hundreds of youth like me had been blessed with this opportunity since 1962. I became obsessed with everything about UWC and had decided - I was going to apply.” John Roy (Portugal/Class of 2014)
On Wednesday, August 22 I came home from a sleepover. As soon as I walked in, my mom told me to check the newspaper, she thought there was an article I would like. I skimmed through the newspaper of that day, and without my mom mentioning what article she was referring to, I knew it immediately. I read about two Belgian girls, going to an international school in India and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where they would work together with people from over 60 nationalities, for peace and sustainability. While I was reading it, I had this feeling that I found what I was looking for. I ripped the article out of the newspaper and put it on my wall, and it is still there. The girl in the newspaper is now my secondy ear, and I’m living my dream. Louise (Belgium/Class of 2015)
First time I found out about UWC was in a women’s magazine in Poland when I was 12. I’ve read all those stories about people from 70-90 countries living for two years together in a foreign country, having the best time of their lives with friendships, multiculturalism, projects and fun experience that can not be found anywhere else. I’ve worked hard for 4 years to be what I thought a UWC candidate should be - and here I am, graduating from MUWCI this year. And I’m not going to cry cause it’s soon going to be over - for the rest of my life I will smile cause it happened. :) by Sonia (Poland/Class of 2014)
My UWC story started 8 years ago. I was 9 and reading a novel called Green Cherry II (Yelil Kiraz II) by Gülten Dayıovlu. In the second book of the novels series, the main character went to a school called “World Colleges” which sounds incredible and magical. I wrote “World Colleges” in Google, it gave “United World Colleges” as answer. I was shocked and amazed. I froze for a while. This school was more amazing, more incredible than the one in the book. 7 years after this I got a phone call said that I was going to MUWCI. Now I am in the amazing place. It is better than the book and website. Telling someone about the UWC who has never been here is difficultalmost impossible. Egesu (Turkey/Class of 2015)
UWC happened quite naturally, and in a way I knew it was simply the place I had to go to. UWC grew up with me. I remember so clearly, like it was yesterday, this five-year old me looking so carefully at the pictures of my aunt, all so dusty in my Grandma’s house. There was one of the day she left to go to that ‘’cool school in Canada’’, with her long dark-hair and her huge suit-case, standing in front of the very same door that I, thirty years later would stand in front of too, heading not to Canada, but to India. I was brought-up with these photographs, with her stories about life in Pearson College UWC, about the friends she still kept in touch with and about how that place so deeply changed her life. Clara (Brazil/Class of 2014)
THREE ALUMNI REFLECT ON THEIR CONTINUING COMMITMENT TO INDIA Elizabeth Sholtys (USA/Class of 2004) is the co-founder and a member of the Board of Directors for the Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC), an organization that works with orphans, street children and slum children in Pune, India.
How did your time at UWC Mahindra College influence what you do now? So much of what I experienced while at UWC laid the foundations for what I do now. I can truly say that studying at MUWCI changed my life in ways that I never could have imagined at the time. I was quite affected by the community service and engagement projects that I worked on in the Triveni Programme- teaching English to the kids in Khubavali and Asde, working with a slum development organization called Shelter Associates, and spending Saturday mornings at SOFOSH in Sassoon Hospital. I also spent a Project Week and part of my summer vacation living in a home for street children in the slums of Mumbai. These experiences at UWC Mahindra College helped inform my understanding of the issues in the children’s welfare field, while UWC ideals and values - dialogue, “My years at diversity, understanding, global exchange, - shaped my conception of what I wanted AIC to offer the UWC Mahindra children in its care. College
Why do you think living in India was an important part of your development? Living in India, especially as a high school student from the US, opened my eyes to so much. I knew from the start, before ever applying to UWC, that I wanted to go to Mahindra College above all of the others, because I wanted an experience that was going to challenge me. I think that it’s very easy to become too comfortable in who we are, the lives we lead, the things we know, and the beliefs we hold to be true. But sometimes it is important to move beyond what we’re certain of and do something unconventional, which has had an amazing, life-altering outcome in my case. My years at UWC Mahindra college definitely encouraged me to embrace the glimmers of craziness and helped me to not be afraid to take an unconventional idea and run with it!
helped me to not be afraid to take an unconventional idea and run with it!”
Lalon Sander (Bangladesh/Class of 2004) is a Managing Editor for the German daily newspaper “die tageszeitung”. He recently began reporting on news from Bangladesh and India. He recently spent two months in India reporting on the national elections.
How did your time at UWC Mahindra College influence what you do now?
“I realized how little of the subcontinent I had been exposed to in Bangladesh.”
I doubt I would be reporting on India now if I had not spent those two years at UWC Mahindra College. During my time at the College, I learnt Hindi and travelled to various parts of the country for Project Week. In my second year, India had its 14th parliamentary elections and I spent a lot of time discussing the campaigns and results with my co-years.
Why do you think living in India was an important part of your development? Going to UWC in India gave me a huge continent to explore and I realized how little of the subcontinent I had been exposed to in Bangladesh. At UWC Mahindra College, I had the opportunity to grow a lot intellectually and emotionally with talented people from around the world who were constantly challenging me on beliefs and knowledge I had been sure of until then.
ALUMNI STORIES
Do you have a story to share? Do you know someone you think should write for us? Please e-mail us at communications@muwci.net! Francesca Refsum Jensenius (Norway/Class of 2002) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. She works on creating, analyzing and making large datasets accessible to the public in order to create more knowledge about the political system in India. She is particularly interested in creating awareness of how politics and political choices can drive development.
How did your time at UWC Mahindra College help you get to where you are today? My time at UWC Mahindra College, completely changed my interests and my trajectory. I would never have worked on what I am doing right now. When I arrived, my big passion was music and I wanted to become an engineer. It was my first Project Week that made me interested in the social sciences. We went to the border of Kashmir and traveled with the military. It was the first time that I understood the meaning of war. One of the officers was telling us how his field partner got killed. For me, that was such an eye opener of people being at and going to war and led me to write an Extended Essay (EE) on the history of Kashmir. Coming to India from Norway was a huge eye opener and contrast- poverty, inequality, women’s rights... Poverty in Norway is that you can’t afford to go on luxurious holidays! Coming to India challenged a lot of perceptions and strenghtened my ability to emphathize with people in other situations. I went back to Norway to do my undergraduate degree, but I missed India. So, I came back and studied Hindi as an exchange student in Delhi. My undergrad ended up being in Politics and Hindi. In many ways, I see the work I do now as kind of an extension on my EE- started more than a decade ago at UWC!
What has UWC meant to you in your life? First of all, I has been so much fun! UWC is a community of really fantastic people around the world- even alumni who didn’t necessarily attend Mahindra College- the people I met have become my community and my friends. Mahindra was also important to me as it made me think of people as not really having a race or religion, but rather as individuals. I think that experience with Kashmir made me very anti- war very early because it made me conscious of the consequences of war. It became very real to me. I love India. Throughout the many years that I have been coming back, I have been talking to people and writing articles to communicate the complexities of India and to not only show the negative aspects of the country and its hopelessness. It is important to communicate the many positive things that are also happening. India is changing so rapidly. For me, one of the interests in India, influenced by UWC has been about the many difficult normative dilemmas . For example, you want to create development but it leads to environmental challenges. It is not obvious what the best solution is. So then how can we create the consciousness and enthusiasm to make a change in the world ?
“For me, one of the interests in India, influenced by UWC, has been about the many difficult normative dilemmas. For example, you want to create development but it leads to environmental challenges. It is not obvious what the best solution is. So then how can we create the consciousness and enthusiasm to make a change in the world ?”
Office of Advancement Village Khubavali PO Paud, Dist. Taluka Mulshi Pune, MH 412 108 Email: development@muwci.net www.uwcmahindracollege.org