Term 3 Dunia 2014/2015

June 2015

Graduation 2015 Mindfulness in education National Service

What’s the difference?

By Chris Edwards Head of College In terms of their rhetoric, most good schools, especially good international schools, are almost indistinguishable from one another.

If a computer were to randomly reallocate the existing marketing brochures, webpages and welcome messages, I seriously wonder if anybody would notice. What’s more, this herd of schools is huddling ever more tightly together as if circling predators were edging closer. Girls and boys beam cherubically from the brochures: none of these children cry or fight or act thoughtlessly. A ridiculously cheerful Head of School will appear somewhere on the website telling you that if you want to truly understand the place, you really must visit and that you can be assured of a warm welcome when you do. Elsewhere there will be promises that the ‘whole child’ will be educated, that technology is used as a means to an end and not for its own sake, that values trump everything else but, don’t worry, we’ve got the academics covered. Service—an area where UWCSEA trailblazed—is now ubiquitous. Oh, and there will be a nod to some ideas parents will not have known from their own youth: ‘growth mindset,’ ‘disruptive education,’ ‘flipped classrooms’ or whatever.

There’s a reason for this. Great international schools are inevitably 2

more similar than they might care to admit, and as they strive to identify and then promote their unique selling points, they will inevitably find their diverse pathways converging at the same junctions. While the bewildering and increasing number of conferences, seminars and presentations on international education is indicative of a welcome collaborative spirit among schools, homogeneity might easily be an unintended consequence. And if one school really does steal a march on others, you can bet it won’t take long before it is once again a part of the collective, either because the idea had more marketing froth than educational substance and was therefore abandoned (I can cite a fair few like this), or because everybody else thought “That’s neat” and quickly did the same.

My first academic year at UWCSEA is nearing its end. And I ask myself: are we as different as we think we are? Is UWCSEA safe in the centre of the herd, or is it a bold outlier staring down the lions? One more question: frankly, does it matter?

Last question first. Yes it does. It matters mightily. The pernicious commodification of education has enough dark champions: our mission statement flies in the face of the pie charts and graphs. What you know is important, but how you apply that knowledge, the skills you have acquired that allow you to attain more relevant

knowledge and, crucially, the ethical ground upon which you stand and fight are more important still. I will repeat this mantra until the day I leave: don’t definitively pronounce how good your schooling was when you are 18; tell us when you are 80. That’s why researchers from Harvard Graduate School of Education are our partners in measuring impact. It’s not a whimsical foray into research heaven: it is vital, and speaks to the core of our being.

So how different are we on the ground?

Well, I confess, I came here wondering if I was going to find Asia’s premier urban hippy-chic community. A kind of San Francisco with killer exam results. I was wrong. It became clear to me very quickly that our students didn’t just hug trees: they knew which trees to hug. I have seen them fuse tangible and ethereal, practical and theoretical, orthodox and radical in ways I have never witnessed elsewhere.

From the resultant intellectual, aspirational and moral gloop comes crawling a discernably UWC-type creature. Mission-driven, self-aware, collaborative, loyal and capable of spotting hype, humbug and propaganda from a hundred paces. There are exceptions of course, but watching our students en masse and as individuals, these traits are evident and in some they come as naturally as leaves to a tree.

Two events (well, technically four), communicated with special force this

Many articles in this edition have expanded content on eDunia (www.uwcsea.edu.sg/edunia) — look for the symbol as you read the magazine and visit eDunia for more photos, video and expanded content.

Other stories featured only on eDunia:

Primary School Building in Bali Families visit the Widhya Asih centres K2 Arts Festival Enjoy a slideshow from the performance unique essence of UWCSEA. The first was UN Night (Dover) and CultuRama (East), the second the respective graduation ceremonies.

There’s an easy win for UN Night and CultuRama of course. Lots of young people from many different nations all working together happily to create a sensational evening’s entertainment for a disparate audience. You nail three quarters of the mission statement down in one go. What’s not to like? But then I’m told that many of these students had never danced before in their lives; that they organised rehearsals in their own time; that many were actually new to the College. This was more than a bonding exercise. Here was courage, discipline and (perhaps most strikingly in an event run to such a large extent by the young participants themselves) quality-control. Strengths and weaknesses were judiciously assessed, collaboratively worked on and melded into something strong, striking and fresh. I remember thinking to myself: these guys could have just settled for Grease.

Graduation was different. While I sat admiring the delightful balance between fun and formality, I also felt a sense of belonging such as justifies my statement on the website in which I claim to have “come home.” Yes, you’d expect a large international school in Singapore to have a huge variety of nationalities up on stage, and yes

you’d hope for some variety of colour and styles in the costumes, but what you would have no right to ask for was the passion of the student speeches, the power of the student music and the palpability of the desire for the mission to be taken to the world.

The visual imagery of graduation is compelling enough, but in the hall you felt something still more arresting: a unity of spirit and purpose. Less “Look what I’ve done,” than “How can we help next?” A beginning as much as a parting.

Where ‘same’ is best, we should do ‘same’ with clear conscience. But Kurt Hahn gave us reasons enough to be wary of conformity. I believe we should stand, and do stand, away from the herd at those times when the UWC mission calls most strongly.

The College is flawed and must always strive to do better, but some of those flaws flow from noble origins, and need gentle redirection, not damming at the source. The veracity of the following, final sentence, cannot be proved, but viscerally, I know it is so. I am so very proud of the students at UWCSEA: they would not be such students had they gone to any other school in the world.

Middle School Children’s Shelter Foundation visit Students connect with peers in Thailand Inspiration in Adelaide Students attend the Young Round Square Conference

High School Advocacy films win at THIMUN Student wins Best Picture Green Fingers Student-led recycling initiative on East Masterchef Indonesia Jakarta Street Kids GC hosts a UWCSEA-YUM fundraiser

College UWCSEA named Apple Distinguished School

Community Swim4Life raises support for SurfAid Growing local on Veggie Wednesday Cover: Dover Graduation, see pages 16–17 3

Mindfulness in education

“You will find only what you bring in.” Master Yoda

By James Dalziel Head of East Campus Mindfulness in a variety of forms has been gaining in popularity over the past years. Broadly based on ancient Buddhist meditation techniques, mindfulness has only recently gained serious study from science. Possibly the best way to generalise the concept of mindfulness is as a purposeful method of gaining increased focus on self. As editorialist Maria Konnikova stated in her December 2012 New York Times article, “… when it comes to experimental psychology, mindfulness is less about spirituality and more about concentration: the ability to quiet your mind, focus your attention on the present, and dismiss any distractions that come your way.” But it’s not just about concentration: mindfulness reportedly helps practitioners live in the present and accept their current circumstances and related feelings for what they are. That is not to say that our current state cannot be changed; in fact, advocates for a mindful approach would argue that an honest recognition of our current state is just the first step toward meaningful change.

Harvard Psychology Professor Ellen Langer’s first studies of mindful practices in the early 1970s arose from her research with an aging population and the effects of age on our ability to focus and maintain concentration. Most recently, mindfulness has found favour in educational settings as a potential antidote for the various afflictions attributed to our hectic, multi-tasked and technology-laden lives.

Mindfulness and mindfulness programmes seem to have become the flavour of the month in educational circles; it’s the latest ornament that simply must be added to our already overloaded school improvement plans.

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This blind adoption of popular trends in education is cavalier at best; at worst it is dangerous and unprofessional. The single metric by which any educational programme should be measured must be the extent to which it leads to gains in student learning. With this in mind, the benefits of mindfulness are clear, but not always obvious.

It can be argued that we are better off when we have a strong sense of our actions and feelings and the effect they are having on ourselves and others.

If we can recognise, for example, that we are feeling mad, and we believe that making decisions when mad does not typically lead to ‘good’ decisions, then we may choose to delay the decision at hand until we are in a different, more productive, state of mind. Similarly, recognising when we are happy and seeking out those conditions that may have contributed to our feelings can be useful in helping us to experience joy in the future. As author Daniel Goleman writes, “Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses.” In this way, our decisionmaking becomes more intentional and balanced and less impulsive and irrational.

School programmes are taking advantage of this mindful approach to provide a model of structured decision making for students. Simply pausing, checking your emotions and feelings, and deciding if you are in the most appropriate state of mind to make the decision at hand, can provide a powerful filter to impulsive adolescent behaviour.

That is, of course, if we remember to employ the mindful steps at all. While practice can help, the reality is that powerful emotions are difficult to put aside while we pause, breathe and monitor our current states. In the early stages of mindfulness students are far

more likely to use mindful practice in a reflective manner, and not necessarily in the heat of the moment.

However, it is the ‘in the moment’ application where mindfulness finds its greatest benefits in the form of an increased level of consciousness.

People who enjoy a heightened state of awareness are typically people who have the ability to monitor their own values, thoughts, behaviours and, ultimately, their goals. They tend to have well-developed value systems that they are able to articulate clearly and within a variety of different contexts, transferring their moral compass into many unique and novel situations. They can generate, hold and apply internal criteria for the decisions they make, and typically practise internal rehearsal and the editing of mental pictures in the process of seeking improved strategies. Those with increased levels of consciousness tend to read situations early and avoid foreseeable relational pitfalls, much to the admiration of those less sensitive souls who seem to blindly bumble into one awkward situation after another.

Individuals with heightened states of consciousness are aware of themselves, aware of others, and aware of the setting they are in. They are conscious of their thinking and feelings in the moment, taking the time to stop and ‘step out’ of their current connections in order to take a meta-level view of themselves and others. This ‘view from the balcony’ as it has become known, allows the viewer to literally see themselves within the scene, recognising the influence of their thinking and subsequent actions on themselves and those around them. This reflective view can avoid ‘assumiside,’ or the danger of trusting wholeheartedly in our assumptions without ever testing reality, or

measuring their truth relative to how others may see the same situation.

This is where mindfulness finds two natural applications within education: firstly, the ability for all members of the community to develop strategies to ‘switch on’ to themselves and others; and secondly the professional benefits that come from working and learning in an environment that is self-monitoring and ultimately self-transforming.

Organisational researcher and corporate coach Jane Ellison highlights this when she cites how educational thinkers Bob Garmston and Bruce Wellman “envisioned schools that could provide a meditative environment, in which all the players contribute to the organisation’s practice of being self-managing, self-monitoring, and self-modifying. The ultimate goal of such schools is continuous self-directed improvements in student learning (Ellison & Hayes, p. 109).”

Authentic and lasting improvements to teaching practice, and the attendant improvements in student learning, come about only when individuals are self-directed in their development, that is to say: self-aware, self-monitoring, self-managing and self-modifying. This is true for all learners.

If consciousness is the ultimate goal where, we may ask, is there room for the notion of ‘flow’? From researchers

Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi and Martin Seligman and from the various schools of Positive Psychology we have been offered another essential educational ornament, that of ‘being in the zone’ or creating the educational environment that supports a ‘flow’ experience.

Flow, in contrast to mindfulness and metacognition, is the state of being fully and unconsciously in the moment.

There is naturally room for both as educational benefits are associated with being in the present, regardless of our state of consciousness.

Ultimately, mindfulness leads to an increased compassion for others.

By starting with a connectedness to ourselves, through whatever mindful strategy we choose to employ, we gain a level of control over our minds and our bodies. The physiological and psychological benefits to this increased state of awareness and self-mastery are well documented. Compassion must begin with a sensitivity and attention to ourselves, which can then evolve into empathy and an understanding of others.

References and resources Ellison, J. & Hayes, C. (2003) Cognitive Coaching: Weaving threads of learning and change into the culture of an organization.

Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc. Norwood, Massachusetts.

Kuyken et al (2012). “Effectiveness of the Mindfulness in Schools Programme: nonrandomised controlled feasibility study” The British Journal of Psychiatry.

Mindful Schools (http://www.mindfulschools.org/uncategorized/mindful-schoolsfeatured-in-time-magazine-cover-story/) Mindfulness in schools project (http://mindfulnessinschools.org/mindfulness/) Sanford, C. (1995) Myths of organizational effectiveness at work. Battle Ground, WA: Springhill.

Weare K. (2012). Evidence for the Impact of Mindfulness on Children and Young People. .b The Mindfulness in Schools Project in association with the University of Exeter Mood Disorder Centre.

A school in which all members of the community are taking a mindful approach to their daily interactions should result in a self-managing, self-directing, compassionate and empathetic environment for our students: gains in student learning must surely follow.

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LEARNING ON A WIDER STAGE

By Daniel Orr Teacher of High School and Middle School Geography and Nathan Hunt Coordinator of Environmental Stewardship and Head of IB Theory of Knowledge Dover Campus With Dover Road becoming one of Singapore’s leading educational hubs, Dover Campus is benefiting from the proximity to neighbouring academic institutions. Recent partnerships with academics at National University of Singapore (NUS) and Yale-NUS are providing valuable learning opportunities for students … whether they are studying for IB Diplomas or PhDs. They are also directly contributing to our goals for environmental stewardship on campus.

When two Environmental Science masters students currently studying at NUS needed some land to carry out a field trial on measuring microclimate effects of native trees in an urban environment, Head of Dover Campus Frazer Cairns was quick to see the educational possibilities for Dover students. In return for offering the use of the astro-turf, where our plant nurseries are currently sited, the ‘deal was sealed’ when they agreed to publicise their work to our students and the wider community.

Tal Hertig and Felix Sadlo (studying at ETH, Zurich but on overseas placement at the NUS-Future Cities Laboratory) were keen to fulfil their side of the bargain. Some of the first to benefit from their expertise were the Grade 11 IBDP geographers. An important unit in the Geography course is urban sustainability, part of which involves examining the effects of structures and 6

Photos by Simon Bignell and Kate Woodford

human activity on urban microclimates, including the ‘urban heat island’ effect.

As a result of climate change and the resultant global warming, urban areas may become unbearably hot as a result of this effect. The first step in helping to plan cities of the future is understanding the interaction between human and natural environments, which is what the field study is attempting to contribute to. After visiting the field study, Grade 11 Geography student Camila Fernández Nion said, “It was great to see our Geography syllabus come to life on our own campus. I believe Geography is a subject that holds the key to solving many of Earth’s problems.”

experimental design is invaluable for Grade 11 students planning their studies.

Frazer Cairns adds, “We benefit greatly by our students working alongside the researchers and in helping to take measurements we hope that their enthusiasm for practical research will be fired. We can also learn a great deal ourselves about how we can manage our immediate environment, and it is interesting to note that a partnership developed between UWCSEA and researchers from ETH through an earlier experiment we hosted, contributed to the design of the new High School block. As a result the building will be one of the most energy efficient buildings in Singapore.”

In preparation for their field trip to Melaka in Term 3, the Grade 11 students were also able to gain an insight into using different data collection techniques to find out what effect an urban environment has on localised climate conditions; this was something which they investigated as one of the three case studies they undertook on the field trip.

The second partnership project is with Yale-NUS, the new Liberal Arts College, and is also based on tree research.

Assistant Professor Dr Michiel Van Breugel is a tropical forest ecologist keen to link his own studies with the work of UWCSEA’s Rainforest Restoration Project. With help from doctoral student Hao Ran Lai and Assistant Director of Singapore Botanic Gardens Elango Velautham, Dr Van Breugel has designed an experiment in our tree nurseries to examine the responses of tree seedlings with various characteristics to different light levels. It is hoped that the data can then be used to help guide species selection for reforestation programmes in this region. The work will be carried out by our students working directly with the Yale-NUS team, and hopefully also involve interested parents and staff. Dr Van Breugel says this “is a great opportunity to pilot a real citizen science collaboration and make a genuine contribution to much needed reforestation research.”

Middle School Geography students also took up the offer to visit the research.

Teacher Sarah Song said, ”The field experiments gave our Grade 8 students an opportunity to observe classroom discussion topics being put into real life action. It was heartening to see the aspirations of our mission statement reflected in the interaction and learning among the students visiting from Zurich and NUS and those from our community at UWCSEA. Tal and Felix were impressed by the depth of understanding apparent from the questions posed by the students. A great experience for all!”

Tal and Felix will also be talking to students carrying out Extended Essays in Science, as their knowledge of

While the emphasis of both of these projects is on learning, clearly both could

have very real outcomes for improved environmental stewardship in South East Asia. And even better, both will leave a legacy of enhanced native biodiversity on Dover Campus, as many of the tree specimens (some of which are classified as critically endangered on the IUCN’s Red list) will be planted out here this coming year.

Finally, one more recent collaboration took advantage of the fact that some of our students have parents who work next door! For the Grade 11 Theory of Knowledge (TOK) Miniweek in January, Dover parent and Professor of Science at Yale-NUS, Brian McAdoo contributed to our lecture series on Integrating Knowledge for Human Understanding.

Professor McAdoo’s presentation Transdisciplinary Approaches to Disaster Risk Reduction might sound like a subject at an academic level way beyond our IB Diploma students, however the interactive style of the presentation and its direct relevance to their studies proved highly useful to them. Not only did Brian’s talk illustrate that a true understanding necessitates integrating thinking from different subject areas (a key premise of the TOK course), but it also served to show that without deliberate integration of local and academic knowledge, the humanitarian projects that the students Global Concerns groups are involved in will rarely be successful.

As the main purpose of a UWCSEA education is to learn how to shape a better world, all three of these partnerships help us to put our mission into practice. As teachers and students we feel very privileged that our university neighbours are so willing to work with us to achieve this.

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What is outdoor education?

By Gareth Barlow Outdoor Education Coordinator East Campus In 2002, I sat in a conference hall in the UK with several hundred other students who would shortly be graduating as teachers from the University of Wales.

We were listening to an advisor from one of the main teaching unions, whose unequivocal advice was that as teachers, we should not take students on off-campus trips. The risk was simply too great.

Fast forward 12 years and I now find myself in the fortunate position of working for UWCSEA’s Outdoor Education Department, organising over 25 overseas trips annually. I find myself wondering why it is that while a national system is backing away from the idea of risk, UWCSEA (and many other schools internationally) are embracing it?

The benefits of outdoor education (which could be defined as the notion of learning beyond the classroom) are many: developing self-esteem; promotion of independence; enhancing cooperation and perseverance; respect and appreciation for the environment.

Having witnessed first-hand the benefits of taking adolescents into the outdoors and exposing (some of these students would argue the verb here should be subjecting) them to challenging situations, I find truth in them all. It was Kurt Hahn, founder of the UWC and Outward Bound movements and the Duke of Edinburgh Award, who made the connection with the particular benefits of impelling young people into experiences that summarises the value of outdoor education and how it can expand personal horizons: “There is more in us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps, for the rest of our lives, we will be unwilling to settle for less.”

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Here at UWCSEA, where Outdoor Education is one of the five elements of the learning programme (alongside Academics, Activities, Personal and Social Education and Service), we offer an incremental progression of experiences to students across the K–12 curriculum.

Grade 1 students spend a night at the school, and this is often the first time they have spent a night away from their parents. As they progress through school, the time spent away on these ‘school camps’ increases and the trips become more adventurous, with an increased focus on expedition-style journeys in Grades 7, 8 and 9.

Participation on the grade-level Outdoor Education expeditions is a requirement for all students at the College and, up until the end of Middle School, these experiences take place during term time and students travel in their class or tutor groups. However, in Grade 9 the pattern changes, as students are offered the chance to select at least one challenging expedition that they must complete during one of the holiday breaks.

Students from both campuses are mixed together on these trips and often students have not met many of their travel companions before.

Last year UWCSEA offered 23 options, ranging from one week to 18 days in length and from $600–$4,000 in cost.

This breadth caters to differing levels of fitness and different interests of students. In some cases these trips also allow students to fulfil requirements for the National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA, the Singapore name for the Duke of Edinburgh Award).

The options include trekking, climbing, kayaking, rafting, tall-ship sailing, scuba diving, sustainability camps, horse riding, mountain biking, biodiversity

research programmes, and multiactivity journeys. Many expeditions entail our students preparing their own food as they face up to the constant challenges posed by such trips. There is an emphasis on personal responsibility, interpersonal skills, and the notion of developing resilience through enduring hardships usually not encountered at school or in students’ daily lives. In fact, this is something that we are always striving to accentuate from year to year.

While we have a staff of nine experienced Outdoor Education professionals at UWCSEA, we work closely with a number of professional third party providers to enable us to offer such a diverse range of experiences to our students each year.

These providers have in many instances been working with the College for a number of years, although a regular review process ensures they continue to meet the high standards we require for our programme.

However, close scrutiny of providers is only one aspect of a bigger picture when we balance risk assessments with the provision of an authentic experience.

The Outdoor Education team devote countless hours to managing these risks by collating information in the schools custom-designed trip management system (called iPAL – Passport to Adventurous Learning). iPal’s database links directly to International SOS, whose staff are on-hand to provide support and guidance while staff and students are on expedition. We also work extremely closely with an independent Technical Advisor and our safety procedures are regularly audited, updated and reviewed.

Working with a Technical Advisor allows us to draw on best practice from around the world, and to understand what other schools (both in the region and further afield) are delivering in an outdoor education capacity.

Although there is a break from Outdoor Education expeditions in Grades 10 and 12 due to busy exam periods, our Grade 11 students embark on a fairly unique experience which, for many students, represents the pinnacle of their time at UWCSEA: Project Week. Working to a limited individual budget, students are required to form small groups and travel unaccompanied overseas for a minimum of five days, in order to complete a trip that involves elements of the IBDP’s Creativity, Action, and Service (CAS). Students are responsible for every aspect of their trip (overseen by a school staff member as their ‘sponsor’), from booking transport and accommodation, to liaising with service or activity providers and establishing a suitable itinerary.

The benefits to students participating in outdoor education trips resonate long after they return. While sometimes not immediately discernible in the excitement of a successfully completed trip with their school friends, the impact becomes apparent in the weeks and months after the expedition. The positive impact on their relationships and ability to collaborate in the classroom is obvious to teachers, and the opportunity for them to view one another in a new light is enormously beneficial for those students who may not find themselves a natural leader in the classroom setting. Most importantly, students have a new understanding of themselves, which they can bring to their learning in other areas of the learning programme.

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Settling in took some perseverance …

Hiking in a national park in Hong Kong or Japan is a far cry from where many of our students choose to spend their vacations, but the National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) pushes our students to the limit. The NYAA is Singapore’s equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh Award and is closely aligned with UWCSEA’s core values. Currently around 100 Grade 9 and FIB students are taking on the challenge of the Silver Award, while 49 students are tackling the demands of the Gold Award.

The NYAA encourages students to engage in service projects, skills development, physical recreation, and adventurous journey, which for the Silver candidates can be linked to a range of expeditions offered by both the Outdoor Education and NYAA departments. For Gold candidates, there is the added challenge of a residential project. There is no doubt that NYAA expects a lot from our students. It’s challenging, demanding, emotionally and physically exhausting, but ultimately rewarding, and has led to a number of our students graduating with truly inspirational accounts of perseverance and friendship.

By Adriene Tien Grade 10 FIB Dover Campus What started as a group of friends at their new international school (having joined in Grade 10 for the Foundation IB (FIB) programme) looking for a way to settle in, ended with us forming a close-knit group, complete with newfound skills and independence. Our participation in the NYAA Silver Award programme was unforgettable—and not just the final five-day expedition 10

in a Hong Kong wilderness area, which included strenuous physical work and mental perseverance.

As the ‘new kids on the block,’ FIB students are viewed somewhat differently—not as outsiders, just as those who might need some ‘kid gloves’ since we’ve not been through the expedition programme that the rest of our Grade 10 peers have completed in earlier grades. When a Gold awardee spelt this out for us on a training hike early in the year, the comment ignited some spirit and immediately pushed us to finish the 20km trek. But it was more far-reaching than that—it ended up sparking competition between those participating in the NYAA Silver Award, along the way helping us to meet so many other people in the school. It was perfect for helping us to settle in.

When we started out in Term 1, the final expedition felt so distant. After spending a couple weeks in self-directed reflection, and some sessions with NYAA Coordinators Wayne Fozzard and Matthew Tuggey, we started planning our expedition. This involved numerous after school sessions, many of which were spent meticulously detailing and perfecting our individual group route cards.

Planning our own trekking routes in a country unfamiliar to us was challenging. Proper terminology in our writing and accurate measurement in time and distance were necessary to ensure our safety. Not to mention our focus on first aid; during one training weekend we spent an evening outside the Roy Bennett Theatre going through

emergency scenarios and the recovery position. Nothing was left to chance and everything was designed to develop skills necessary for all candidates to complete the award.

Fortunately, the effort was fruitful.

The Hong Kong expedition took place 29 March to 2 April. As the distant event that we had laughed and joked about at school was becoming a reality, even the three-hour plane journey to Hong Kong had us feeling nostalgic about our access to technology. Anxiety was creeping up in us, but as we got off that last bus at the starting point of the trip, it was replaced with excitement about the adventure ahead. The first few breaths of fresh air were enough to knock me off my feet.

What followed was without a doubt one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. Thrown into Tsai Kung, Hong Kong, and applying the skills we gained over the past months of pre-trip training and planning, was a blast of exhaustion, perseverance and accomplishment.

We reached our goal height of 408 metres on Tai Cham Koi mountain and conquered the most peaks of any group. I’d like to personally thank Group 5 for being extremely collaborative, encouraging, and unyielding throughout our final expedition.

The time we allocated to the NYAA was absolutely worth it. On behalf of the FIBs who joined the Silver Award as an exercise to help us settle in to our new school, I’d like to say thank you—the experience was greatly appreciated and irreplaceable.

A Gap Year in five parts

By James Kelly Class of 2014 UWCSEA 2007–2014 On 10 August 2014 I started the first of five projects that I’ve undertaken in the last 12 months during my Gap Year.

My first project was in Bandipur, Nepal, where for 10 weeks I taught English at the local public school for Himalayan Voluntourism, as well as tutored in the mornings and evenings at a study centre. Teaching at the local school was very difficult. Though I’d done the ELT course, before I had to put it into practice I never truly understood just how hard the English language is to learn from scratch.

Living in Nepal was very humbling. It highlighted to me everything that I take for granted: Internet, education, electricity, food. Some of my students walked across mountains each day just to come to school for a few hours before they had to walk back again.

Talking with them about their homes and how they live showed me the vast differences between their lives and how I lived in Singapore.

After my stint in Nepal I changed course entirely and returned to UWCSEA to accompany the Dover Campus Grade 8 Chiang Mai trips. My role was to act as a bridge between the students and teachers, and to assist with the smooth running of the trips. It was a unique experience being part of staff instead of one of the participating students for the first time, and I saw new sides to teachers whom I had encountered at school as their student. I learned

a lot about the safety checks and risk assessments that are continually incorporated into the running of these expeditions, giving me some insight into how UWCSEA continues to run them so successfully.

My next destination was Phnom Penh for a second round of teaching English with Equitable Cambodia. Although the activity was the same, the experience was very different. Instead of being in a rural village I was in the capital city, teaching three different classes with very different age groups. Throughout the day the ages of my students ranged from 5 years old all the way up to 23; and the students’ quality of English varied dramatically as well. I worked side by side with the local teachers, who helped to translate into Khmer where necessary. It would have been very difficult to explain grammatical concepts without this help.

I then spent five weeks on a Marine Conservation programme run by Lutwala Dive Centre on Gili Trawanagan in Lombok, Indonesia, learning to scuba dive. While there, I learned about the beauty of the ocean, the delicacy of the ecosystem below the waves, and the devastating effects that humans have on coastal life.

My final destination was Tioman Island, Malaysia, this time helping with the East Campus Grade 6 expeditions.

more. The amazing friends I’ve made, diverse groups of people I’ve met, and the variety of experiences I’ve had will all, I have no doubt, continue to influence how I see the world in the future. I have heard people say they think of a Gap Year as a waste of time because it delays further education and subsequently joining the work force. However, being dropped into completely different cultures without family, friends or the support network of being part of a school trip has provided me valuable life lessons that can’t be taught, or learned, in a classroom.

Partnership with the British Council UWCSEA partners with the British Council to offer an English Language Teaching (ELT) course to UWCSEA students in Grade 11 or 12 who are planning a gap year and need to ‘up skill’ in order to add value to their placements.

The course runs over weekends during the academic year or as an intensive one-week course after graduation. In 2015, 40 students completed their certification, while the previous year, 53 students completed the course.

Initially, I took a Gap Year to help figure out what I wanted to study when I go to Willamette University, a liberal arts college in Oregon, USA later this year.

However, it ended up being so much 11

MINDFUL practices on East Campus

By Naomi Kelly Head of Counselling East Campus “The world is all abuzz right now about Mindfulness*.” It was with this quote from Williams and Penman’s (2011) book Mindfulness: An eight week plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World that we began promoting the practice of mindfulness with Administration staff at East Campus in April. The participants were keen to understand the term that is being embraced by students and parents across the College. Whether through the PACE mindfulness programme that was offered earlier this year for parents, activities in Primary School such as ‘Calm Confidence,’ ‘Yoga Bugs’ or ‘Breathing Buddies,’ the Grade 8 Life Skills ‘.b’ programme or High School Personal and Social Education (PSE), the practice of mindfulness meditations and an enhanced awareness of the moment is blossoming.

Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment with an open mind, curiosity and acceptance. It has been shown to improve health and wellbeing (Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015), memory, faster reaction times and increased physical and mental stamina (Williams and Penman, 2011).

Many of our Primary School teachers who have participated in Mindful Schools programmes, have their own mindfulness practices and implement strategies in their classrooms. One of the Grade 3 teachers, Jaki Graham, hosted a Wednesday afternoon professional development session for Primary teachers earlier this year. It was an opportunity to share ideas and many teachers left the session having experienced some simple mindful practices that they could use with their classes, as well as resources to access further support.

One of the more powerful benefits of mindfulness that we have seen is 12

when students become more aware of themselves and their thoughts, whether they are in the past, the future or the present. Having the choice and the ability to redirect their attention to the present, enables them to focus for longer periods on whatever they are doing at that moment, whether learning, playing, talking, listening or just relaxing!

In addition to a lunchtime Mindfulness Activity, Middle School Counsellor, Cindy Tisdall-McPhee has been facilitating the .b Mindfulness programme as a component of the Grade 8 Life Skills curriculum.

Alongside Life Skills teachers Marianne Yong-Macdonald and Nadine Mains, students have been able to engage in the nine-week Stop. Breathe and Be programme from the UK’s Mindfulness in Schools Project.

In her research for Evidence for the Impact of Mindfulness on Children and Young People, Katherine Weare found that “adolescents who are mindful, either through their character or through learning, tend to experience greater well-being, and that being more mindful tends to accompany more positive emotion, greater popularity and having more friends, and less negative

emotion and anxiety (2012, p 2).” With evidence such as that, the High School PSE programme has also embraced mindfulness. Opportunities to practise mindfulness meditations are expanding and currently include sessions with the boarding community in Tampines House as well as a much anticipated Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programme with staff beginning in the new academic year. * Please read James Dalziel’s article on pages 4–5 of this edition of Dunia to understand more about the theoretical background to mindfulness.

References and resources Mindful Schools www.mindfulschools.org Mindfulness in Schools http://mindfulnessinschools.org Weare K. (2012). Evidence for the Impact of Mindfulness on Children and Young People. .b The Mindfulness in Schools Project in association with the University of Exeter Mood Disorder Centre.

Williams, M. and Penman, D. (2011) Mindfulness: An eight week plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Rodale Inc. USA.

Photo by Jaki Graham

Students practising mindful breathing with their ‘breathing buddies.’ Watching the soft toy rise and fall helps students to become more aware of their breath. This practice comes from Daniel Goleman.

ELEMENT literary magazine The UWCSEA Dover English Department and a group of student literary enthusiasts have reinvigorated the College’s literary magazine ‘Element.’ After a four-year break Element was reborn in print thanks to a canny business plan and intense editorial efforts.

The result is an elegant black and white print publication showcasing the literary and artistic talents of High School students at UWCSEA Dover.

The magazine launch was celebrated at ‘Element Evening’ on 29 April, where published students performed their works live to an appreciative audience.

Two distinguished Singaporean poets also addressed the audience as guests on the evening: award-winning poet Yong Shu Hoong has a vast collection of published works, teaches creative writing at Nanyang Technological University and writes for Esquire Singapore. He has twice won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2013 for The Viewing Party and in 2006 for his collection Frontage. Alvin Pang is a Singaporean poet, writer, editor, anthologist and translator and the founding director of The Literary Centre in Singapore, a non-profit organisation promoting literary development, multilingual communication and positive social change. He was Singapore’s Young Artist of the Year for Literature in 2005 and was conferred the Singapore Youth Award (Arts and Culture) in 2007.

something tangible that could be read and reread as a permanent record of the literary successes of our community.

Mentored by teachers from the English Department, submissions were accepted throughout the year from a number of events and course units. Most notable was the ‘Lost in Translation’ event celebrating International Mother Tongue Day in February, where the editors asked students to submit their own translations of poetry originally written in their mother tongue.

The Element team wanted to celebrate the linguistic diversity at UWCSEA— there are more than 70 nationalities represented in the student body and over 52 languages—and so the theme became ‘Bearing across: finding in translation.’ A secondary aim of this theme was to highlight the difficulty of translating languages into the mould required by the English language.

Reflecting on the process, Grade 11 student and editor Jaewon Baek said, “We placed as many pieces of student work as possible into the 102-page book. When selecting pieces the editorial team focused on those that were ‘honest’ and could connect with the reader; pieces that carried a kind

of universal human truth that could be identified with and agreed upon. It was also important as a creative literary work to avoid clichés in expression, and to leave a kind of impression on the reader—whatever impression it may be …”

Students from Grade 9 to Grade 12 also formed teams to attend to business functions as diverse as editing, marketing, finance and artwork. After an intense period of selecting, editing, sequencing and layout work, the magazine was brought to life in print.

Launched at Element Evening, the magazine is available for sale at $5 per copy from the English Department.

Seed funds for the printing were provided by the Parents’ Association and by Head of Dover Campus, Frazer Cairns. Explaining his support for the magazine, Frazer includes a quote by Joseph Conrad, “‘by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see’ … There is something about words, whether they are written or spoken. In expert hands, manipulated with skill, they can captivate you or set you free. What other reason is necessary to support a reinvigorated Element?”

Former teacher and polytechnic lecturer, and now full-time artist, David Liew also joined the evening. While his work is primarily in children’s illustration and writing, as someone who draws everywhere he goes he created some beautiful sketches of some of the speakers at Element Evening, which are featured on this page.

The decision to move back into print after several years of online publication was born of the desire to produce

Photos by Samay Bansal, illustrations by David Liew

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IB Art on East

IBDP Visual Arts student, Arianne Gor, reflects on her artistic process and the learning and growth she’s experienced through the course and in her own work.

On the opposite page are highlights from the IB Art Show held this term on East Campus which showcased some of the outstanding work produced by Grade 12 students over the two-year IBDP Visual Arts programme.

Purpose in the process no way be reduced to simply fostering creativity; I’ve also had to commit a great deal to developing organisational skills and resilience in my work. To do well, one must be very organised and efficient at managing oneself. The entire process of planning one’s artwork from the initial concept to completing the final piece is a learning experience—and a rewarding one at that.

By Arianne Gor Grade 11 East Campus It all starts with an image—a composition in my mind. I rarely start with the meaning of a piece; you don’t need to have a mind-blowing message, meaning or purpose behind your piece.

That’s one of the great things about Higher Level IBDP Visual Arts; you aren’t pressured to be a genius from the beginning because as most things, the meaning and purpose of an artwork emerge over time.

In the initial stage, I usually sketch out my composition; I decide what I want the subject to be, what colours will look good, and so forth. To do this, I use my sketchbook, which is an extremely helpful tool to help me figure out what I want to paint without messing up the final piece and having to redo it. Sometimes, I’ll paint a miniature mock piece to see what works well; other times I’ll just roughly jot down colour swatches and notes and then start painting. With digital art, my process is a little different because of

course, on the computer, you can press undo. Nevertheless, I still begin with a concept image of what I want to paint.

In the IB Art course, speed is your enemy and it takes quite a lot of selfmanagement to be able to keep yourself on track. The value of the course can in

I think that there is a misconception that Art is a light, burden-free subject without worries or commitment. The truth is that to be able to finish an art piece and do it well, one must be committed to the planning stage, to the development process and to trying new things. And when these new things don’t work out, Art students must develop their resilience and keep trying even if the experimentation goes wrong or doesn’t produce the desired effect.

While it can be difficult, every time you do this, you learn something new and grow as an artist.

Sketchbook notes and design process for Occupied by Arianne Gor

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IB Art Show 2015 The 2015 IB Art Show on East Campus exhibited the work of 25 Higher and Standard Level IBDP Visual Arts students in Grade 12. The students prepare work over the two-year IBDP and are ultimately assessed on an average of 15 works each. The exhibition included the students’ selected studio works.

At the show’s opening on 22 April, guests were invited to engage with the artists and explore the deeper meaning in the artwork. Ted Cowan, High School Vice Principal, addressed those gathered.

“As you look at these works, some will mesmerise you, some will make you think and some might even make you a little uncomfortable. The artists have personalised a variety of styles and approaches to express their own ideas. Talk to them, ask them what they were thinking and what message they want to get across. The artists are trying to create a new perspective in the hopes to elicit change.”

Some of the themes in this year’s works included: • the integration of man and technology • the meeting of society’s expectations • multiple women’s issues like the politics of beauty, obvious and not-so-obvious violence against them and their plight in different cultures • the contradiction between what we say and do in our values • and a loss of innocence As you will see from the selected works here, the artistic achievement of these Grade 12 artists is truly impressive.

Clockwise from upper left: Karan Matta Self Portrait, Jia Chen Wan Good Girl, Veronica Chung Child Saint, Aslan Iskandar Bakri Indonesian Devil, Robert Williamson Contemporary Religion, Kyla van der Heijden Local Architecture

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GR ADUAT

By Ricarda Filsinger Speaker for Class of 2015 Dover Campus

Why did it take me seeing my mother so upset, for me to appreciate what she was going through?

The power of appreciation is the lesson that I have learned, and indeed, it is the lesson that I am still learning.

[Today], I would like to share with you how it is that I came about learning the single greatest lesson of my life. This lesson is the lesson of appreciation.

I remember 12th December because two days later my mother passed away unexpectedly, right next to me.

I am grateful, that she did not have to celebrate Christmas without her brother. I am grateful, that we are an incredibly strong family. I am grateful, for everyone who was there with us in those very difficult days.

So believe me when I say, I appreciate the fact that we are standing here today … There is no last week, no next week, there is only today, right here and right now … Let us never forget to appreciate. Because if we don’t truly know what something—or someone—means until it is taken away from us, then one day when we have achieved our dreams, we may wake up and realise that we have spent our whole lives sleeping. Instead, let us look back at our journey and know that we appreciated every single stepping stone along the way.

The last time I stood on a stage and spoke to you, it was Friday, 12th of December. I gave a speech to all of you, a speech that had come from my heart.

[I told how] I had come home from school that week to find my mother standing amongst boxes of Christmas decorations, crying uncontrollably. She was crying because she didn’t want to celebrate Christmas without her brother, who had passed away in a car accident 6 months before.

500 Graduates

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But, this is why I am sharing this with you, I am most grateful, that in those hours before she passed, I had made the decision to tell her about the speech I gave that Friday. She passed away, knowing that she was appreciated. I cannot begin to express how grateful I am for that.

42 Scholars

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Nationalities represented

ION 2015

By Parth Chhabra Speaker for Class of 2015 East Campus It’s strange to think that 12 years of schooling have all built up to this exact moment. This is what we have been training for in a sense but it doesn’t feel real … I’ve never known anything but school. I can’t comprehend the possibilities of a life without one.

And so, I hear the future is upon us. This whole ‘real world’ beckons. We have a lot to consider.

I hope we always stand up for things we believe in. That we keep laughing … and never take ourselves too seriously.

I hope we always fight, for others and ourselves. There’s so much to fight for,

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so much that needs fighting for. We are part of something larger than ourselves here at UWC—exactly what, I suppose is for each of us to figure out personally.

But I really do believe that graduating from here, we have the opportunity and responsibility to fight and speak up.

There is so much do: income inequality, gender bias, discrimination of race and sexuality, an impending climate change crisis. As we go forward into this world, we have to challenge archaic ideas, move people, and shape our surroundings for the better.

At East, we’ve been lucky enough to learn what it means to be part of a truly collective community. Where we don’t try to dismiss our differences, but recognise them, celebrate them and use

Countries from which people watched ceremonies online

them as the glue to a rich and diverse shared culture. We’ve come together regardless of our differences, be they of race, religion or sexuality … And it is this inclusivity and richness of shared experience, I believe, that we must always keep searching and fighting for.

We are strong, we are ready and I know that we have it in us to be our own ‘Happy Guys.’

I hope we do well. I hope we do good.

Thank you, Class of 2015, for a lovely four years. I know we’ll do wonderful, wonderful things.

To view photo and video content from the graduation ceremonies, visit eDunia.

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is your ability to work well with others, and UWCSEA taught me the skills of leadership and understanding, time and time again. As part of the jungle confidence course, I completed a nineday trek with only two days worth of food through the jungle of Brunei with nine other men—an unforgettable experience in group work!”

Singapore National Service In the 2015 graduating class, 31 boys from Dover Campus and 11 from East Campus will enlist in National Service (NS) in Singapore. Both Singaporean citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs), these UWCSEA graduates will spend two years as full-time National Servicemen at some stage over the next three years.

Starting National Service can be a daunting prospect for many students and their families. It can be difficult to accept that while their peers are getting ready to go to university or on a gap year, it will be two or three years before they have the opportunity to do the same. To help NS-liable students prepare for this commitment, UWCSEA has developed a programme to assist them both physically and emotionally.

This starts as early as Grade 9, and includes information evenings for families, individual counselling and NS camp visits and fitness training.

A programme of support The first step for most families is attending a NS information evening, organised by the University Advising Centre (UAC) team on Dover or East Campus. Families are encouraged to attend a session prior to their sons’ mandatory NS registration at age 16 and six months. These provide an overview of what NS involves, and UWCSEA alumni currently undertaking their NS share their experiences and answer families’ questions. As part of this session on Dover Campus, Gary Seston, High School Vice Principal also shares his experiences, both personal and professional.

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Later on, in Grades 11 and 12, UWCSEA organises visits to NS camps, and in the past few years after-school fitness training for NS-eligible boys has been offered on Dover Campus. Gary also counsels families one-on-one, answering any questions they may have regarding NS enrolment.

Before and after NS, the UACs help these students with their university applications, whether they complete NS in Singapore or in another country.

An alumnus’ perspective Adam Seston (Class of 2011, Gary’s son) completed his NS in February 2014.

Adam started in basic military training, and then entered Officer Cadet School, which included two overseas training tours, to Brunei and Taiwan. In Brunei, Adam underwent platoon training and completed an extreme jungle confidence course. The officers were later sent to Taiwan, to experience platoon and company training in cooler weather conditions. In his final year, Adam was enrolled at the Infantry Training Institute, where he worked as a platoon commander and trainer to assess the operational readiness of battalions. Adam reflects on how UWCSEA helped prepare him for NS: “UWCSEA taught me the skills of critical thinking and how to work well in a group, which were invaluable assets for my time as an officer. The emphasis UWCSEA puts on group work taught me how to understand different cultures and how to work together successfully. The difference between being a great soldier and a great leader,

Now in his first year of a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Adam shares how NS helped to further prepare him for university, “NS served as great preparation for university … Whereas my friends are getting flustered or stressed about deadlines or exams, I am able to keep a level head and work my way through. I also learned that what I put into life, is what I get out. I was really pleased that I opted for the ‘harder’ route in my NS training, and chose to become an officer cadet … I learned so much, and really exceeded my own expectations of what I am capable of.”

Collaboration with MINDEF As the College looks to further support families whose children have a NS commitment, we are also working with the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) to help improve communication about the NS programme. MINDEF has made a concerted effort in the last few years to reach out to NS-liable boys to address their concerns, and UWCSEA is keen to support this effort. Head of College, Chris Edwards will be serving for the next two years as Chair of the Educational Institutions Committee, a part of the Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence, which was established to deepen engagement with different segments of the Singapore population.

In September, UWCSEA is planning an information session about NS open to NS-liable boys and their families at international schools across Singapore, addressing questions about enlistment procedures, and giving families a chance to hear from NS men and their parents.

National Service is a fact of life for many of our students and UWCSEA and MINDEF are working together to make the process a more positive one, and to highlight the benefits NS can offer.

Davis UWC scholarship students making things happen “There are three types of people in the world; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. I invest in you because you make things happen.”

Shelby Davis In February 2013, Shelby Davis, cofounder of the Davis UWC Scholars Program visited UWCSEA to meet students at the Singapore campuses of what he refers to as the ‘world’s largest family.’ Wyclife Omondi (Class of 2013, Kenyan National Committee (NC) Scholar) shared his impressions at the time: “I was greatly inspired by his first words, ‘There are three types of people in the world; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. I invest in you because you make things happen.’ These words not only made me evaluate my role in our world, but also to hold on to my dreams and persist in them.”

Wyclife has certainly held true to his dreams, and now attends Earlham College, a liberal arts school in Richmond, Indiana, USA on a DavisUWC Scholarship. This summer, with a US$10,000 grant from President David Dawson’s Discretionary Fund at Earlham College, he will return to Nyabondo Primary School, the mostly-male school he attended in Kisumu, Kenya.

He plans to lead a five-week workshop for 50 boys and girls, aiming to ease the effects of bullying while enhancing learning opportunities for girls as part of a ‘Teens for Peace’ project. “Bullying of female students in Kenyan mixed public primary schools has been a major contributor to poor girl child education,” he said. “I want to create a culturally appropriate awareness education platform that will help both genders understand each other.”

Kengthsagn Louis (Class of 2013, Haitian NC) is also on a Davis UWC scholarship, attending the US liberal arts college, Skidmore. She is studying Psychology and Management and Business. In addition to being awarded a US$10,000 Davis Projects for Peace Grant, she has secured an additional US$9,000 to support her proposal, ‘Practicing Science for a Peaceful Haiti.’ The project will create a science laboratory at Lycée Marie-Jeanne, the all-girls high school located in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, that Kengthsagn attended before coming to UWCSEA. This summer’s Davis Projects for Peace grant is a second opportunity for her to contribute to positive development in Haiti, as Kengthsagn distinguished herself in her first year at university, as a Skidmore ‘SEE-Beyond Award’ winner and has spent last summer interning with an NGO in Haiti.

The Davis UWC Scholars Program, founded by Shelby Davis and Philip Geier, provides scholarships to talented international students at American universities. Over 14 years, 276 UWCSEA students have

received financial aid to attend US universities through the Davis UWC Scholars Program.

Projects for Peace is an initiative open to all students at the partner schools of the Davis UWC Scholars Program.

Students design grassroots, summer projects—anywhere in the world—to promote peace and address the root causes of conflict. This year will be the ninth summer of Davis Projects for Peace program, initiated by the late Kathryn Wasserman Davis, Shelby Davis’ mother—in celebration of her own 100th birthday in 2006.

Zimbabwean NC scholar Heather Cox (Class of 2015, East) contemplated her experience at UWCSEA and how, through the support of the Davis UWC Scholar Program, she will be able to continue to broaden her perspectives; “Next year, I will be continuing my education at Middlebury College in Vermont, where I hope to do a double major in music and biochemistry. I’m excited about the future, but am also sad about leaving … I know that my experiences here will have a profound impact on the way that I live the rest of my life: it has made me realise that though perfection is impossible, selfreflection allows one to evolve into a better person each day.”

Visit www.davisuwcscholars.org to learn more about the Davis UWC Scholars Program, and visit the UWCSEA website www.uwcsea.edu. sg to watch a video of Shelby Davis explaining his commitment to the program.

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Tabitha and UWCSEA – 20

By Kate Lewis Teacher of Geography and Susan Edwards Head of Global Concerns Dover Campus The numbers do count. They count for the change and the impact that they bring to both sides of a partnership.

We speak of the incredible partnership between UWCSEA and Tabitha Cambodia. A partnership that is 20 years young and still counting.

In the 2014/2015 academic year alone, UWCSEA has supported the sustainable and effective Tabitha programmes: family partnerships, savings, wells, field ponds, chickens, pigs, school building and house building to the tune of SG$282,248. On the ground, this means that the UWCSEA community built 100 houses, two schools, sunk 150 wells, dug 10 field ponds and funded the family partnerships savings programme in two provinces, as well as sponsoring the supply of innumerable chickens and pigs to help families secure an income that is not dependent on the weather. Whilst a few chickens or a litter of piglets may seem like small steps, they are key to breaking out of poverty for the recipients, as Cambodian families need on average of five different income streams to create financial security.

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Tabitha tells us that over the years, UWCSEA has built 1,035 houses, 17 schools, funded 1,289 sources of water and supported 10,784 families through the family partnerships programme.

The size of an average Cambodian family is six people, so by extrapolation this means that UWCSEA has supported somewhere in the vicinity of 70,914 individuals to break from economic disadvantage to relative middle class status. Numbers do count.

“What an amazing journey we have had with UWCSEA over the years … I thank you for the lives that were touched by UWCSEA because the College cared enough to reach out.

May our relationship continue to grow from strength to strength.”

Good money certainly follows good ideas and this year again the Grade 8 student builders espoused the virtues of Tabitha and worked hard to fund the houses they built during the Term 2 holidays. The students gave presentations to their parents’ companies, they wrote to family members and asked that they support Tabitha rather than send birthday gifts, they gained sponsorships and in the case of Ana Koczanowski, swam 10 kilometres to raise SG$12,000. All totalled, the Grade 8 students raised over SG$105,000, which funded 40 houses. A staggering amount of money, which demonstrates their understanding of Tabitha as an effective grassroots NGO from which they can learn.

Janne Ritskes Founder-Director Tabitha Cambodia

For the UWCSEA community, house building is about friendships between

different peoples from very different backgrounds. It is an opportunity to learn about dignity and about respect for each other. It is about change, which includes a change of attitude from those who have so little to see that those of us who have so much are capable of doing hard physical labor (even though, if we’re honest, it is a struggle for many!). The volunteers on the UWCSEA house building teams also come to a greater awareness of their own inner strength by working in difficult conditions in a hot climate, and at the end of the build appreciate that they can do so much more than they

years and still going strong thought they were capable of. In Kurt Hahn’s words, plus est en vous.

The learning also works both ways in a more literal sense. Our students learn and a great many Khmer students are also given opportunities to learn as a result of our partnership. This year’s Grade 8 students were able to visit Ta Che Middle School, which is currently under construction. It is the third school that Ella McAuliffe (a staunch Tabitha supporter since Primary School and currently in Grade 8) has funded, this one in partnership with the UWCSEA laptop accessories initiative. The group of students who visited Svay Rieng province spent the day at Sandoat School, Ella’s second school. There they led art and craft activities, a first for many of the kindergarten students who had never used coloured pencils and a wonderful learning experience for all.

From the small group of UWCSEA teachers who travelled to Cambodia on the first build almost 20 years ago, Tabitha is now a global family with branches in Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, Canada and, of course, Cambodia. We are proud that the Singapore chapter of Tabitha grew from UWCSEA, and that the East Campus hosts the Tabitha Singapore silk stockroom (open during term time on Wednesdays, 10.30am–2.30pm in

Room A109). On Dover Campus, Grade 2 raises funds for pigs, wells, chickens and family partnerships, the Grade 8 housebuilding trip explicitly links Global Concerns to the History curriculum, there is a High School GC group which also undertakes fundraising, and groups of Grade 11 Project Week visitors.

Involving our wider community, the Family and Staff Building trips travel over Chinese New Year annually, and this year the UWCSEA Ladies’ Tabitha Housebuilding Team generously supported Tabitha to the tune of SG$88,564. There is also the incredibly successful PACE Schools group, which has funded the construction of eight Primary Schools and one Middle School, and is currently funding the building of a ninth school. PACE’s support for Tabitha Schools since 2007 has raised SG$571,673, and the PACE-funded schools provide educational facilities for nearly 5,000 students in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces.

Janne Ritskes, Founder-Director of Tabitha Cambodia, reflects on the partnership between Tabitha and UWCSEA, “What an amazing journey we have had with UWCSEA over the years. I remember the teachers coming to build in the middle of another coup attempt, the house we were building falling down and people on both sides

hurt. The Cambodians didn’t think the teachers would be back—and so when they walked through the community the next day, people came out of their shacks and bowed deeply out of respect. It was the beginning of a journey together that grew from one team to a number of teams from the UWCSEA community—teachers, students, families, ladies. And as UWCSEA grew so did we. I thank all of you for the gift of hope and life—the grace you have bestowed on so many here. I thank you for the lives that were touched by UWCSEA because the College cared enough to reach out. May our relationship continue to grow from strength to strength.”

UWCSEA’s Global Concerns programme has expanded at the same rate as Tabitha over the past 20 years. When looking at establishing possible links with other grassroots organisations for any new GCs, Tabitha is viewed as a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of our potential NGO partners. We have the utmost respect for Tabitha; our partnership brings enormous learning opportunities for our entire UWCSEA community.

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Tech tools for teaching at Krousar Thmey

By Keri-Lee Beasley, Dave Caleb, Adrienne Michetti and Jeff Plaman Digital Literacy Coaches East Campus Technology frequently appears on wish lists of our Global Concerns (GC) NGO partners—and for good reasons.

Not only can work experience with technology improve employment opportunities for the communities they serve, but the technology itself can also connect those communities with a global audience, providing access to dynamic knowledge and contacts, and leading to increased awareness of the NGO’s cause.

Initial contact and evaluation Last school year, the IT and Service departments at East Campus began exploring how they could collaborate to provide technology tools and support for our NGO partners in Cambodia.

In April 2014, all four Digital Literacy Coaches (DLCs) joined a service trip to Phnom Penh to evaluate the potential of technology to enhance learning for the students in several of our GC partner organisations. After visits to Tiny Toones, Indochina Starfish Foundation and Krousar Thmey schools, we came to the difficult decision that working with Krousar Thmey schools would offer the most leverage in terms of using technology for development. One Krousar Thmey school in particular, the Chbar Ampov School for the Deaf, stood out due to its small size and the school’s enthusiastic and open-minded leadership 22

in embracing new technologies. Further, because of the visual nature of learning in a school for the deaf, we felt there was a tremendous opportunity to enhance learning through the use of video.

Before embarking on a technology-fordevelopment partnership, we wanted to ensure that we would not adopt a ‘dump-and-dash’ approach where old and unused technology is donated to an organisation without the human resources to support and maintain it.

After speaking extensively with the East Service team and using the Compass Model for Sustainability as our guide, we devised a plan that we felt was sustainable and actionable.

Fundraising Given the profile and size of Chbar Ampov School for the Deaf—140 deaf students in 10 classes—and after spending time in classrooms with their teachers and students, we felt better positioned to make suggestions regarding tools to enhance learning.

Recognising the visual nature of learning for deaf students, we soon concluded that iPads would be the best tool since videos and photos can significantly enhance learning in this context. We then set a goal to raise funds to purchase 11 iPads with substantial storage.

DLC Dave Caleb offered his services and time as a means to raise the funds needed. A professional photographer as well as a teacher, Dave is skilled in his craft, so when he suggested offering the school community 30-minute slots

for paid family portrait sessions, we knew we were on our way to success.

The sessions were so popular that the planned weekend of slots was extended an extra day to meet demand! Students and teachers involved in the Krousar Thmey GC contributed to the project by meeting families and providing snacks during sessions, as well as downloading and editing photo portraits later on.

The project successfully raised enough money to purchase 11 refurbished iPad Airs with 128GB of storage, cases and screen protectors. The funds raised also allowed us access to an excellent support team in Phnom Penh via another East Service partner, the Liger Learning Center. Staff and students at Liger designed and constructed a lockable cabinet to store and charge the iPads at Chbar Ampov School for the Deaf.

Preparation and planning Integrating digital tools to support student learning at Chbar Ampov presented unique challenges, the biggest of which was language. None of us speak Khmer, nor do we speak Khmer Sign Language! As such, the project pushed us to design learning opportunities in creative ways. Most importantly, we focused on iPad’s videocapture feature as an opportunity to support development of sign language learning. Creating resources that deaf students can use independently of their teacher allows for flexibility and personalised learning; further, it creates more opportunities for teachers

to differentiate their instruction. For example, one group of students might be learning independently using the iPads while the teacher works with a different group. Deaf students can also use the iPads to show their understanding by creating artefacts that incorporate images, video, typed text and audio.

Keeping all of this in mind, we decided to focus initially on developing teachers’ skills in capturing media and creation of learning resources such as multi-touch books. For this particular purpose, we prepared sample multi-touch books to show teachers what was possible using the Book Creator app for iPad. During our preparations, we kept in close contact with the school leadership, as well as senior leaders at Krousar Thmey NGO. Their input guided our logistical short-term plans as well as our long-term planning with sustainability in mind. By February 2015, we had confirmation that our on-site training proposal had been accepted and we began getting excited for another trip to the school.

On-the-ground training Over the first week of the April 2015 term break, the four of us returned to Phnom Penh, iPads in hand. We were fortunate to have a full day with Chbar Ampov School for the Deaf’s teaching staff to introduce them to the iPad’s

features and explore how it could be used to enhance learning for their students. The teachers—some hearingimpaired and some hearing-able—had varying levels of experience with iPads, but most were new users. Luckily, one of the teachers and the school principal spoke English, which allowed translation of our instruction to sign language, though we still relied heavily on body language for communication throughout the day! Through hands-on and collaborative activities, teachers learned experientially about basic iOS functions, how to capture photos and video, and how to create multi-touch books for relevant curricular areas.

All Chbar Ampov’s teachers turned out to be enthusiastic learners who embraced the challenges put to them in the workshop. It was truly gratifying to see their excitement as new approaches to teaching and learning came to life.

Our hope is that these new pedagogical approaches become common practice in their classrooms and allow for multimodal instruction; as a DLC team, we are committed to supporting these teachers in their continued professional learning.

Follow-up and next steps In late April, Keri-Lee Beasley returned with a group of East students, parents and staff supporting the Krousar Thmey GC. Our students were able to show the

Chbar Ampov students how to use some of the iPad apps while Keri-Lee was able to spend time with both their teachers and students, reinforcing the learning from our initial training session. This first follow-up visit was a crucial step in a long path to changing pedagogies at the school. In working with the students as well as teachers, Keri-Lee was able to provide a timely modelling opportunity for teachers to witness what these instructional practices look like in action.

We know that providing access to digital tools is just the tip of the iceberg; what will truly make lasting change is a shift in pedagogy. To this end, we are already planning for at least two follow-up visits during the 2015/2016 school year and continuing support for years to come.

Our long-term plan for sustainable educational development at Krousar Thmey schools involves additional East students and teachers in project planning, implementation, training and support roles. Looking ahead, we also hope to develop a scalable model to enhance learning via technology in other schools supported by East GCs. To learn more about the Krousar Thmey GC and their recent trip to Cambodia with East Middle School students and parents, please visit eDunia.

Photos by Dave Caleb

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Geographers bring learning to life By the High School Geography Department Dover Campus This was the case for the superb team of 46 Grade 11 Higher and Standard IBDP Geography students who recently spent four days discovering how theories taught in the classroom correlate with reality. An example of how valuable these field trips can be to our students is described by Leila Fuerst, “being a person who learns better kinesthetically, fieldwork is ideal as it allows me to study ‘out of the box.’”

Pranav Bhardwaj agrees, “Most of the work we do in class is theoretical, so it’s good to leave the class and do hands-on work, making it more real and memorable.”

The annual residential field-trip to Melaka, Malaysia, focuses on putting into practice Geography’s extensive set of skills. What better way to learn about rivers than knee deep in water? Isn’t it better to actually feel small-scale variations in climate to gain a deeper understanding of micro-climate variations and their causes rather than simply referring to theory? Student Samay Bansal agrees, “Through fieldwork, Bradshaw’s river model takes the shape of meanders, not triangles on a page.”

During the trip the student teams scientifically recorded and analysed data to uncover patterns and anomalies during three investigations into urban homogeneity, microclimates and river characteristics. Each student will select one of their studies to develop into an examined IBDP coursework worth 20% of their final Geography grade.

The 21st Century skills of the Geographer are perhaps the broadest of any academic discipline—ranging from collecting, presenting, analysing and interpreting data; debating and role play; presentations; explaining and evaluating; interpreting graphics, maps, photos and cartoons; recognising human and natural features; putting the news in context; increasing global and local awareness and ultimately decision making and problem solving. All of these skills are related to an everchanging pattern across the surface of our planet. Field trips bring these skills to life for students, as Oliver Kippax-Chui observed “it’s good to get out and practise—if you just learn the skills without practising them you may not be using them accurately.”

Being in the field provides the best possible learning environment, beyond the classroom, for students to develop, apply and reflect on their skills whilst forging friendships and understanding. In the process they become more socially and environmentally sensitive, informed and responsible citizens.

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Photo by Debate Association Singapore and the Julia Gabriel Centre

Photo by Suraj Ramasamy

Debating success

By Arjun Sai Krishnan, Grade 10, Dover Campus A euphoric cheer rose as UWCSEA was announced the unanimous winner by all seven judges. We were the first ever international school champions of the Singapore Secondary School Debating Championship! All of our hard work after school, all of our prep sessions and all of our training had paid off! Even more important than the final result, however, was the journey that brought us there and forged us into a team.

It all began in the preliminary rounds, when the team were still finding our feet. After a fierce and close first debate, our opponents won. However, the loss provided us with important learning, and the incentive to improve. We worked hard to improve our rebuttals and while maintaining and defending a strong case on our side, and went invigorated into the following rounds, and won both!

However, neither we nor our coaches were expecting to break to quarterfinals, and it came as a complete shock that we ranked fifth at the end of the preliminary round.

This was an impromptu round, with one hour to prepare an entire case and plan each speech, which really brought out the best in every one of us as we brainstormed creative ways to deal with the motion. The impromptu rounds were a real challenge but at the same time extremely motivating; our team dynamic evolved and each one of us stepped up to the pressure and the challenge.

After an equally challenging semi-final round, where we all realised how far we had come as debaters, we were faced with a challenging motion for opposition in the Grand Final round: “This house would tax popular forms of entertainment to fund ‘high art.’” After multiple rewrites of a lengthy case, we arrived at our final argument which had, apart from an analysis of the role and meaning of culture, descriptions of Romeo and Juliet as the story of misled teenagers that elope and commit suicide due to a miscommunication, and a contrast with positive messages that popular entertainment sends to the public today.

While we were well prepared, the Grand Final was cut-throat but quite messy. The atmosphere was electrifying. As the debate proceeded, each speaker delivered their best. The rest is history, as they say; with Rajat and Anish ranking 11th and 10th respectively in the competition overall, and Zach winning Best Speaker at the Grand Final! However, we have gained at lot more from debate than a trophy and a shield.

Zach, Rajat, Anish, Saloni, Anusha and I will forever be immensely grateful to the guidance and training that our coaches, teachers, and Seniors have given us. Debate has equipped us with the tools to problematise and analyse situations methodically and objectively, and to argue on any front. As we move into Senior School, we hope to bring UWCSEA more laurels in coming years while advancing ourselves as debaters at the same time!

Sowing seeds for the future The Dover Campus Middle School debating team—Grade 8 students Jacob Intrater, Min Gi Kwon, Rohan Kumar Antonio da Roza and Hosshini Suraj— were semi-finalists at the Raffles Debate Academy U14 Debate Championships, held on 16 and 23 May. The students went through some intense training with their coach Emmanuel Ng over the week preceding the competition, having been selected for the team during earlier try-outs.

UWCSEA Dover was the only international school that entered the competition.

The Middle School debating team will be further developed next academic year, with auditions to be held in September and October for the eight places on the team that will work with a debate coach with the eventual goal of entering this prestigious competition.

This opportunity to further specialise via participation on a Middle School debate team will enhance the offerings available to Middle School students, which this year included two options open to all students as part of the Activities programme—‘presentation and debate’ which focused on basic skill enhancement and ‘team debate,’ a progression for students wishing to gain more debating experience.

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MULTILINGUALISM CONFERENCE to share, to learn, to inspire

By Laurie Kraaijeveld High School Head of Languages Other than English and School Supported Self-Taught Languages East Campus In an international school as culturally and linguistically diverse as UWCSEA, multilingualism is necessarily important.

UWCSEA’s commitment to language diversity and supporting mother tongue languages comes not only out of respect for the many cultures from which our students originate, but also from best educational practice. As Head of Dover Campus, Frazer Cairns, has shared, “Modern educational research now sees multilingualism as a potential asset that provides learners with a strategic (and significant) advantage … speakers of multiple languages learn further languages more easily … However, more interestingly, research has suggested that a ‘uniqueness’ exists in the development of multilingual students when compared to their monolingual peers … Speaking multiple languages, it seems, makes you better not just at other languages, but also more creative and better at mathematics, science or history.”

Out of this understanding and commitment, a team of UWCSEA staff endeavoured to gather fellow educators for a conference. The first UWCSEA Multilingualism Conference took place at UWCSEA’s Centre for International Education on East Campus from 15 to 17 May, with the aims ‘to share, to learn, to inspire.’ Around 100 international educators from Asia, Europe and Africa gathered along with UWCSEA teachers to discuss teaching and learning foreign languages and mother tongue education, as well as strategies to support students who are learning through a language other than their first.

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Four keynote speakers inspired participants through their impassioned talks to parents and teachers. Ghil’ad Zuckermann, a UWC Adriatic alumnus and Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages at the University of Adelaide in Australia, shared his reasons for keeping languages alive as well as some insights gained from his work with revitalising Aboriginal languages in Australia. Alex Rawlings, a 23-year-old Oxford University graduate, who won the title of ‘Britain’s most multilingual student’ after demonstrating his speaking skills in 11 languages in a polyglot competition, shared his passion for learning languages and reminded teachers of the importance of making languages fun to learn. Ruanni Tupas, a Filipino sociolinguist from the National University of Singapore, presented his theory on variations in English around the world. Lastly, Eithne Gallagher, an experienced ESL teacher and author of Equal Rights to the Curriculum: Many languages, One Message, spoke about ‘interlingual schools’ and her experience of using ‘translanguaging’ in the classroom. ‘Translanguaging’ is an educational approach, which allows students to use their mother tongue in the classroom. Doing so builds on the existing knowledge and skills, which are encoded in the first languages of students who do not have English as a mother tongue.

A key takeaway from the conference was the need for inspiration in teaching and learning languages. Alex Rawlings highlighted the fact that students want to learn skills that they will be able to use in their adult life, such as looking for a flat or speaking in a job interview, and that learning languages should not be regarded as ‘another school subject.’

According to Alex, learning languages is

about knowing oneself as a learner and opening up to others, attributes which align with the ‘self-aware’ quality in the UWCSEA profile.

Another significant message was about the importance of genuine communication and practice in learning languages. Whilst the motivation for learning languages is fuelled by a need to communicate and interact, learning occurs through work, repetition and continual revision of previous knowledge, not through ‘talent’ or ‘natural ability.’ This is consistent with the UWCSEA learning principles which emphasise interaction and building upon previous knowledge. This also reinforces the UWCSEA ethos of valuing a growth mindset.

Lastly, another crucial learning point relates to school mindsets. A multilingual school mindset was highlighted as a hallmark of a genuine international school. International schools need to be places where the students’ many languages are visible, heard and maintained for academic, personal and social learning purposes; not places where bilingual students are turned into monolingual students through establishing an ‘English only’ climate.

Participants left the conference inspired to make a difference in their schools and classrooms. Reminding students that their languages are a part of who they are, that maintaining their languages will help them with learning other languages, that they should help others who are in linguistic need … these are messages that the participants will be sharing with their students and colleagues around the world.

WHAT’S YOUR INTEREST?

By Tracy Jochmann Head of K1 East Campus That is the question that all of K1 have been asking recently. Throughout the grade, students worked in small groups on Interest Projects spanning a range of topics from spaceships, gymnastics, dinosaurs and Australia, to ballet, snowflakes and ice sports.

The purpose of this project was twofold: first to engage K1 students in tasks for a more sustained period of time, and second to build their qualities and skills in the UWCSEA profile including ‘collaborative,’ ‘communicator,’ and ‘creative’ through work with their peers in small groups. Having students select topics of personal interest encouraged them to develop both of these areas in a more meaningful way.

The children began by brainstorming all of the things they were interested in. Then, within their class groups, they formed small groups based on similar interests. As a group the students then came up with a plan for how they would explore their topic.

At the same time the teachers mapped the curricular standards and benchmarks for the groups to identify each project’s alignment with our academic subjects.

We found that the projects not only aligned with Science and Humanities benchmarks, but also with numerous Literacy, Mathematics and Personal and Social Education ones.

With their teacher’s support, each group worked together to explore their topic in a way that helped them reach the identified benchmarks and profile skills.

As the topic explorations began in earnest, students collected books from the library, conducted science experiments, built Lego structures,

constructed items out of cardboard, created observational drawings, made puppets, wrote and made books, and used iBooks and video clips as both sources of information and ways to demonstrate their learning.

During K1 community time children had the opportunity to meet with a group from another class that shared a similar interest. We also invited parents who are experts in particular areas to come in and speak to groups from across classes and share their knowledge of the subject.

Following this research process, the Interest Projects progressed to field trips out into the Singapore community allowing students to explore their topics further at a relevant site. Groups from across classes attended a trip together that linked with the Interest Project.

Along with parent volunteers who came along to support the field trips, groups visited the Singapore Zoo, Singapore Science Centre, an ice skating rink, the Singapore Sports Hub and the Urban Redevelopment Authority building.

Other groups toured the Esplanade Theatre and travelled on various forms of transportation to get to the airport.

The Interest Projects came to a close with each small group giving a presentation to their classmates on their learning process. The children helped to decide the criteria for assessment which included everyone in the group having a role in the presentation and speaking in a big, clear voice.

Regardless of the students’ interest area or field trip destination, the enthusiasm, motivation and pleasure in what and how they were learning was clearly evident. As a teaching team, we found the Interest Projects unit was an effective way to engage students in learning across the academic curriculum while also developing their qualities and skills.

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Evolution of a sustainable development project

By Nathan Hunt Coordinator of Environmental Stewardship Dover Campus The Lamdon School Reforestation Project has been in place for five years now and as coordinator of the project’s funding, this year I was finally able to visit to carry out an appraisal. As the project is mainly financed by our UWCSEA Carbon Offsetting Initiative, I have always avoided the irony of flying up to Leh, India and instead relied on annual reports from the school and their long-standing supporter, Bill Kite.

However the chance to be involved in the selection process for the UWCSEA Staff-supported Scholarship allowed me to justify the flight—I finally had another excuse to go to Ladakh.

There has been much debate about carbon offset projects in recent years so I was keen to carry out a detailed review with a critical eye. I surveyed all the planting sites, spoke to the gardeners, staff and students and reviewed the accounts from the last few years with Principal Eshey Thundup. I am glad to say my conclusions were unequivocal: the school has run the project superbly and with great value for money.

There are now about 9,000 native poplars and willows planted in the school grounds, turning an area of dusty desert into a hillside oasis. Though suited to the arid climate, the young trees are irrigated by groundwater

(pumped mainly using solar energy) until their roots have established.

Current plans include the replacement of some of the remaining electrical pumps with solar-powered ones and the installation of more efficient drip irrigation in all the groves. The majority of the funds donated through the carbon taxes are allocated to these infrastructure works, all of which can be contracted to local companies.

During my visit, planting was taking place on beautifully engineered terraces (financed by the Dalai Lama Trust) above the school. This included poplar stems harvested from the existing trees as well as local and longer-lasting varieties of fruit trees supplied by the Defence Institute of High Altitude Research. Work was also being carried out on a greenhouse next to the boys’ hostel where a supply of highly fertile sheep manure from a nomadic farmers cooperative was waiting to be spread.

These new developments will not just mean a more shady and pleasant campus for the school, but the poplar trees will soon provide an income as they are selectively harvested and sold for traditional timber-framed Ladakhi homes. The fruit trees and greenhouse will also supply much-needed nutrition to the campus during the long winter when fresh fruit and vegetables are virtually absent. All of this work means that this year’s funds will be used to finance the employment of another gardener.

Future work will not only include more planting, but Principal Eshey also outlined his plans for solar cookers for the girls’ and boys’ hostels that will save the school a huge amount in fuel bills. This is something we would be very keen to fund, as it seems very clear that all these plans work together for genuine sustainable development—a key part of the UWC mission where partnerships are formed to bring environmental, social and economic benefits to those that most need them.

This is a project that raises the quality of life (health, income, employment, skills and well-being) of a community while not only protecting, but actually enhancing the natural life-support systems of the region.

There remain both ethical and technical issues with offsetting in general— carbon is a lot easier to calculate as emission from fuels than absorption by nature during the life of a tree, and its use as an excuse not to change behaviour is problematic. However, while we will review the promotion of this project as a way to offset carbon emissions, we will certainly look to expand this and similar projects as part of the College’s commitment to sustainable development.

Photos by Nathan Hunt

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Collaboration funds scholarships While the staff at UWCSEA give enormous amounts of time and energy to their students at the College, for 17 years a number of them have also been financially supporting scholars at other UWCs. To date, UWCSEA staff have financially supported 16 scholars to complete their IB Diploma at either Waterford Kamhlaba UWC in Swaziland or UWC Mahindra College in Pune, India.

Initially established to help a student in our community finish their IB Diploma at UWCSEA, once that student had graduated the staff looked for ways to continue the programme. There seemed to be a natural connection with UWCSEA’s long-standing partner Lamdon School in Ladakh and UWC Mahindra; both were in India, both were looking for opportunities for their students and Mahindra had a goal to include students from minority ‘tribal populations.’ The first scholar from this partnership, Dr Padma Chosden, graduated in 2000 and has since returned to Ladakh after completing medical studies in India. She is now a practicing doctor specialising in gynaecology.

The Staff Scholarship Fund will continue this partnership in August 2015, as Sonam Gurmet joins Mahindra as the 10th staff-supported scholar from Ladakh. Sonam was selected in March after teachers Nathan Hunt (Dover Campus), Mary Newbigin and Shruti Tewari (East Campus) travelled to the

Lamdon School in Ladakh to participate in the selection process. Sonam has attended the Lamdon School as a sponsored student for the past nine years leaving his father, grandfather, and three younger siblings to travel 400km to school from his remote community.

Since Grade 5 Sonam has returned home in the holidays and taught the children in the local community, with up to 50 children attending his informal classes. Sonam spent considerable time discussing a possible career path as a civil engineer and the impact he could have on the Ladakh community if he became a skilled engineer. Despite the wealth of superb candidates at Lamdon, Sonam’s selection was a unanimous choice—he was clearly exactly the sort of student that would make the best of this great opportunity.

Originally supporting a single scholar through their studies before recruiting another, the Staff Scholarship Fund has grown, and currently around 120 staff across the two campuses support four students—two at Mahindra and two at Waterford—through their IB Diplomas.

They also assist UWCSEA’s National Committee scholars with the costs of visas and flights when they begin university. As these funds are dispersed overseas, the money is raised solely via direct salary deductions.

The most recent graduate, Sisekelo Dlamini (Class of 2014, Waterford) came to UWCSEA during April, having graduated in December 2014. He visited

at the invitation of the Staff Scholarship Fund, and spent a month between the campuses, living in the boarding houses, visiting classrooms and staff rooms, and even travelling to Sibu with a Grade 7 expedition—the week by the sea was a first for this citizen of a landlocked country. Sisekelo will spend a further three months volunteering as a Teaching Assistant at Waterford, before starting a Mechanical Engineering degree at the African Leadership University in Mauritius.

Scholar recruitment for UWC Waterford works slightly differently, as Sisekelo explained on his recent visit, “I attended on a partial scholarship up until Grade 10. After that, my mother said that she could not afford to send me there any longer. But I was so determined to do my IB Diploma that I turned up for orientation anyway, and a few days later the school called me to the side and told me that I was being given a scholarship funded by some teachers in Singapore. I was so grateful and happy that I had been given a chance through my perseverance. I met Cathy Elliott [Teacher of Biology and CAS Coordinator, UWCSEA Dover] when she visited Waterford, and at the time I thought she must be a very rich woman! … but having come to UWCSEA I can see that it is a collaborative effort by ordinary people that has funded my scholarship.

Everyone has contributed a little and I would like to thank them for that.”

Sisekelo in a Grade 1 Music lesson on Dover Campus.

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Acting for sustainable change

By Sophia Palmstedt Class of 2012 Dover Campus Enactus is the best thing I have done since graduating from UWCSEA. It allows me to practise everything I learn in my course and apply it to something I feel passionately about—creating social empowerment projects. I could go on forever about this society and the skills I’ve learnt (leadership, project planning, business planning, communication, networking etc) but it’s honestly all because of how UWCSEA shaped me to want more than just an academic education at university that makes me so enthusiastic.

Having attended UWCSEA from the age of 12 to 18, I should be starting this article with assertiveness, energy and captivating vocabulary. But you simply can’t summarise the impact of UWCSEA on an individual in one sentence. This is my third and final year as a Management (with Human Resources) student at Royal Holloway University of London, 30

and as my university course comes to a close, I’ve found myself thinking about my academic career so far, the experiences I’ve had and who I’ve become as a result of them.

I think most alumni would agree that it is only when you leave UWCSEA that you realise how good your life actually was.

Only now do I realise that having to take part in a Global Concern and committing your time to social service once a week as a curriculum requirement from a very early age may have felt forced at the time, but that this view was that of a naïve teenager. And that at some point we just stopped questioning why we have to do it and found that we wanted to do it, just because we felt like it. This is why UWCSEA students aren’t like the rest. It is also the reason that drove me to join the Enactus community at Royal Holloway on only my third day at university.

In simple terms, Enactus is like a Global Concern but taken to the next level.

It is a global, non-profit organisation operating in 37 countries run by 1,600 students all over the world. A community of university students, leaders and business advisors with one common goal: to empower communities through entrepreneurship projects.

During my second year of university I became president of the Enactus Royal Holloway team. With the help of local partners such as NGOs and local community centres we work with a group of individuals, identify their specific needs and the needs of their community, and tailor a project aimed to tackle these needs. Through the transfer of business and economic concepts we are then able to teach and therefore empower individuals to overcome their problems and improve their quality of life and standard of living.

Because of Enactus, I was able to travel and set up a project in Seenigama, Sri Lanka in January 2014, empowering 12 women to gain an income and raise their confidence by setting up a

jackfruit chutney enterprise. I was able to practise everything I learned in my course and apply it to creating a social empowerment project.

winter in Bolivia by providing them with locally produced thermal blankets made from old crisp packets that previously littered their village.

At the same time, we ran a project called ENTYRE: a local project in the UK empowering four people with mental health conditions through a tyre recycling enterprise, turning them into ottoman chairs and selling them to local furniture shops. The year before I witnessed the growth of a project in India called SEW: Sustainable Empowerment for Women. Through an incense stick business (a product of high religious demand), developed over two years, we managed to raise 40 women 8% above the poverty line, by raising their income by 70%. Enactus Southampton used old plastic bottles to create a toilet, providing the villagers in Kissie, Kenya with a solution to meeting their basic needs and providing the local farmers with human waste as fertilizer to increase their crop yield. Enactus Sheffield saved families from the harsh

Aside from making it to the semi-final round of every Enactus UK National competition (where we present our projects in front of a panel of judges from Enactus sponsor companies), being part of the Enactus world is an incredible experience. I have the chance to help people, teaching women about the break-even point or the basic principles of marketing (theories I learn in my university lectures). I also lead a team of 30, managing weekly committee meetings, overseeing four social projects, running guest speaker events, coordinating the annual ‘fresher’s week,’ liaising with our business advisory board and communications with university officials. This has given me invaluable skills in leadership, public speaking, project management, team work, risk assessments, networking, project planning and, maybe the most important

of all, lessons from experiencing failure and learning from it.

What UWCSEA and Enactus have in common is that making a sustainable impact in this world isn’t done over night; it takes time and commitment. If anything this has made me look at the world differently. The saying “Give a man a fish and he’ll feed his family for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll feed his family for a lifetime” isn’t just an ephemeral thought but my state of mind in everything I do.

I was asked what my plans are after I graduate and even though I’m uncertain about my exact next steps at the moment, I am certain of my values, beliefs and personal strengths because of the lessons learned at both UWCSEA and Enactus. I feel strongly that any future path will be guided by these.

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Dunia is published by UWC South East Asia.

Reproduction in any manner in English or any other language is prohibited without written consent.

Please send feedback to dunia@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Editors: Sinéad Collins, Kate Woodford, Molly Fassbender and Courtney Carlson Design: Nandita Gupta Photography: Sabrina Rech and members of the UWCSEA community 064COM–1415

Printed on recycled paper with environmentally friendly inks.

UWCSEA Dover is registered by the CPE CPE Registration No. 197000825H CPE Registration Period 18 July 2011–17 July 2017 Charity Registration No. 00142 UWCSEA East is registered by the CPE CPE Registration No. 200801795N CPE Registration Period 10 March 2011–9 March 2017 Charity Registration No. 002104 MCI (P) 125/04/2015

Alice in Wonderland East Campus Middle School production 27–29 May, Black Box Theatre The classic tale of Alice in Wonderland was reimagined and brought to life for three sold-out nights in late May. Forty-two Middle School students performed in the production with eight more contributing their talents behind the scenes. This adaptation included four girls in the role of Alice, each one representing a different part of Alice’s personality: curious, angry, petulant and scared.

The magical set, costumes, lighting and sound all helped create this unique version of the tale in which a girl falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by strange and fantastic creatures.

The Drama and Service departments also collaborated to offer a performance for some of our Local Service partner organisations. This was a first on East and a practice the departments hope will become a tradition.