The “Sterk” Theatre Group (meaning strong in Norwegian) uses theatre as a means to explore strong, controversial topics and issues. At the start of the year we used many theatre activities and exercises to build confidence and trust in the group, and to introduce some of the forum theatre techniques that we use for workshops. The group used improvisation to construct short performances tackling issues relevant to young people such as exclusion and prejudice, sexuality and drugs. Through acting roles, experimenting with characters and discussion participants built confidence and experiences which they can use to be more aware of issues and more empowered to deal with them in their own lives.
For these regular workshops students take it in turns to lead activities, to act, direct and the theatre is always a collaborative, creative product. This builds their theatre skills, their personal confidence and offers them a chance to raise issues that are important to them. The group this year has been a small but dedicated and motivated one equally engaged in social issues and theatre.
For the college ‘Womens’ Day’ event the group directed, acted and performed two powerful monologues as group pieces. ‘The Rape’ is a heartbreaking account of the experience of victims, and raises the issue of the difficulty of reporting it to the police. ‘An Arab Woman Speaks’ is the narrative of a Bedouin woman’s arranged marriage and raises the issue of traditions of domestic abuse and the stigma of divorce. These were powerful, controversial and hopeful presentations of just some of the themes relevant to women. The performances were ambitions and bold but raised great debate. Well done to all involved.
Every Friday since mid April a group of eleven students have been training to become canoe leaders. We have practiced rescuing capsized canoes, learnt paddling techniques and generally how to prepare for a short trip. We have explored the length of Flekke Fjord, gaining confidence in our paddling skills. After we have completed the course we will be able to lead short trips to various places along the fjord, giving other students the opportunity to try canoeing as well. It is a great way to get out and enjoy nature.
UB Sahrawi is a non-profit company based in RCNUWC which was established under the umbrella of YYA (Norwegian Young Entrepreneurship). Our main aim is to develop a production in Western Sahara refugee camps, to help the refugees make their traditional hand craft and make an income. “UB Sahrawi markets inside and outside Norway artifacts and other objects to be produced in the Sahrawi camps, in order to provide purposeful activities, and a source of income for these producers”. At the beginning, we decided to focus on the production of stone jewellery.
With the help of YYA, we managed to avoid almost all the bureaucratic hindrances so starting was not very hard. All the Norwegians helped a lot in this process. Then, we organized the structure of the company by dividing it into three sectors: marketing, finance and production. Each of these is led by a director who is responsible to report everything to the managing director. The responsible for the meetings is the chairman.
As part of the project promoted by YYA, we took part in a fair in Førde; so our main occupation right after Christmas break until February was preparing this event which would help UB Sahrawi sell its ideas and attract some potential interests. We prepared a presentation about our company, we printed business cards and we made all the decoration for our boot. During the fair, our general impression was positive. We spent the whole day advertising the company by distributing business cards and other informative material. We also gave our presentation to the organizers of the event. One of the most positive aspects of this day was the possibility to compare our company with others, and also get further ideas and learn from other successful companies as examples.
Afterwards, we contacted and met with Jacob a few times , who is a local artist specified in making stone-jewels. This is to evaluate and understand how producing stone jewellery is in order to find the possibility of producing such products in the camps. We invited Jacob to dinner and we went to his laboratory to see how he works; moreover, we had the possibility of ascertaining the costs of producing stone-jewellery. However, due to some of the limitations and the fitness of our business ideas, we decided switch from producing the stone jewellery. After long but constructive discussions we decided that the production of camel-skin bags and bracelets would be better because it is far less costly. We made a very vague draft of the product to let the people in the camps express their creativity. We are planning to import some bags and bracelets at the beginning of next fall in order to start the marketing. In the mean time, UB Sahrawi has also made a large donation of Kr 20,000 to DROP to help Raselas School in Ethiopia.
By next term, we will be getting our first products from the refugee camps, and we will be marketing it as widely as possible to achieve our business ideas and to benefit the initial producers.
Fjaler Ungdomsråd, Fjaler Youth Council, consists of representatives from all the schools in this region of Sogn og Fjordane, our college included. We have come together once or twice every month and discussed issues concerning the youth in Fjaler. During this time we have also allocated a pot of money to different youth initiatives in the region. All in all, it has been very exciting work and we feel we have contributed a little bit to strengthening the bond between our college and the rest of the community in Fjaler. One of the major events we planned this year was UKM, which turned out to be very successful in the end. Next year we will hand the responsibility over to two of our dearest first-years to continue the work. (Gjertud & Bendik)
Throughout the year, we have carried out weekly visits to the retirement home in Dale, and spent some hours among the elderly people there. First and foremost, we have offered time for conversations, which for sure have been giving for both parts. We have learned a lot from them, especially when it comes to local history;) We have also experienced that the elderly people really enjoyed our visits, as the nurses often were quite busy. Some of us established close relationships, as we visited the same person each week. Naturally, this taught us the importance of professional confidentiality.
The EAC has also given us insight to the routines in the home, and we have helped with serving food. The daily cookie break with cake and coffee, which we usually helped prepare, surely was enjoyable!
We have been four girls in this EAC, and it has been important to us to maintain the same group throughout the whole year, as we have gotten to know the users at the home and daily routines there.
All in all, it has been a very useful and exciting insight to the health sector and the life in a retirement home, and we have all drawn valuable experience from this which we believe we’ll take use of later.
Our first aid team is made up of about 35 people and is split into three sub teams – red, white, and blue. It lasts for all of second year and part of the first year. The level of commitment for this team is quite high, every Tuesday the team gathers for 3 hour training sessions. These sessions can include anything from general presentations on certain aspects of first aid to treating casualties in pre-planned scenarios. Some of the presentations we have had so far are what to do in the case of a crush injury or a fracture, how to treat temperature ailments such as hyperthermia and heat exhaustion, how to react to poisons in the form of animal or insect bites and chemical poisons, such as cleaning fluid.
So far we have completed three scenarios with the three teams alternating the roles o angels, first aiders, and casualties. Just to clarify the definitions of these terms, an angel is someone who watches over a particular casualty and their first aider. They can also be used to get information about the appearance and state of the casualty. However in order for the first aider to receive information about the casualty in the scenario they must first check the casualty’s “real life” symptoms and exchange this information for the scenario information. For example if a first aider wants to know the pulse of the casualty in the scenario they must first identify the pulse of the casualty in real life. This is a way to make sure the first aiders can actually perform the assessment instead of just following the steps.
One of these scenarios usually takes about an hour to complete, leaving half and hour for evaluation time. During this time the first aiders, casualties, and angels comment on the scenario. This is a time for constructive criticism and is a vital part of our training. The exact detail, high commitment, and repetition of basics make the Red Cross Nordic UWC first aid team very skilled, and able to operate at relatively high standards.
This term has been full of events for Amnesty International. We were still meeting every Monday at 16:00 at the beginning and then now on every Thursday at 20:00 focusing on current issues and presentations where human rights abuse is seen. We have been discussing about the situation in Kenya at this time where the ethnic groups motivated by political anger are committing massive homicide, the censorship and abuse in China mostly against human rights activist, the issues of abuse of women for instance the case of Ethiopian women going to the neighboring Arabic countries. The presentations are followed by debate about what can be done generally to improve the situation and then about what can Amnesty International do. Discussions are always interesting as they educate politically and are highly informative for all of us. As an amnesty group, we then take action by writing letters ourselves to governments and politicians to show solidarity and hopefully make a change and by sitting in public place to raise awareness and incite people to write.
Raising awareness:
Sitting in the kantina:
Often we do it locally at the college amongst students and staff where more than 60 people sign petitions or write their own letters. Examples of those are:
- The Ethiopian case ( January),
- Chinese human right activist being under arrested in his house (March)
– The case of Tibet in China (6th of May)
Documentary: The Killers’ Paradise
According to our decision from last term to raise money for stamps and to raise awareness in a different and larger target, in the occasion of the international women’s day, we went to Dale, in a shop, the Saturday 8th of March from 10:00 to 16:00.
Women’s day in Dale:
We were presenting local case concerning the rape case in Norway and other international issues about Brasil, Guatemala and Peru… Local people from Dale were very friendly and patient to listen and investigate the cases (we didn’t speak Norwegian, which made the communication challenging!) and then sign and pay the postage of the letters we have been preparing. This day has been fruitful: we got about 50 letters posted and extra-money to post about 60 others letters.
In the process of raising awareness, the Amnesty International group showed to the broad public in the college a movie entitled : “The Killers’Paradise”, a documentary reporting the flagrant and unpunished case of killing women in Guatemala. It was preceded by a short presentation of the Amnesty EAC at the college.
Lopper market:
Our last action of the year outside meetings was the sale of souvenirs and clothes from students to provide money for stamps. It was very effective too with a lot of interest from students and some people from Haugland. We used the opportunity of having people gathered to inform about Amnesty’s stands and actions.
Writing letter Marathon: 12½ hours
One other very interesting and fruitful activity that we had in Amnesty International was the “Writing letter marathon of 12½ hours”. We started on a Sunday evening, the 16th of March from 19:00 until the 17th of March at 7.30 in the morning, in the Swedish classroom. About 15 people were there, staying or passing by to bring active participation and write. We posted in the morning about 60 home made letters of cases that we discussing and discovering the night in Amnesty web-site. The cases were from all over the world but the most urgent ones were fro China, Iran and Iraq. It has been an occasion for people to show their interest in the world and a lot of interesting conversations were going on. Once again, it was very informative and people were developing writing skills and some geographical and political knowledge.
Our last action of the year outside meetings was the sale of souvenirs and clothes from students to provide money for stamps. It was very effective too with a lot of interest from students and some people from Haugland. We used the opportunity of having people gathered to inform about Amnesty’s stand and actions.
Some more actions are planned for the next term and we really look forward to new faces and new ideas. Thanks very much everyone for the efforts done this term!
The College was fully involved in the Norwegian National Day celebrations in both Flekke and Dale. Students, who dressed in national costumes and carried a variety of flags in addition to the Norwegian national flag, participated in the ceremonies and the parades. The College’s talented musicians and dancers were also featured in the show in Dale.
The Global Concerns conference on Religion will occur on October 30-31, 2008. A group of enthusiastic and dedicated students and staff are organizing this event. Please click on the image to view the possible topics:
External speakers are being invited.
Other schools in the Nordic region will be invited to participate in the conference.
If you would like to recommend speakers or participate in the conference, please contact the Extra-Academic Programs office at the College. Telephone +47-5773-7083.
The traditional boating EAC educates students in the various uses of West coast Norwegian hand-crafted boats. Students help to maintain a boat, its rigging and sails, using traditional methods. Rowing, sailing and navigation techniques will also be covered, culminating in an extended trip over a night or two.
To date the boat has been scraped down inside and out to remove all dirt and algae, and several coats of “tar” have been applied to the boat, mast and oars in order to water proof and preserve.
We have also made a solution of birch bark, sea water and soda which, after a two week fermentation period will be used to soak the sail and rigging in to waterproof them. This process will not only water proof the sail but, as a by product, also dye it a rich red colour.
We hope to have the boat back in the water by the 22nd of May and have it rigged and ready to sail by the following week.