Breaking New Ground
The UWC Red Cross Nordic winter exchange program with the UWC Maastricht was the first of its kind in the history of the UWC. The idea was conceived when our college was faced with a situation where many students, some who could not go home and others who voluntarily chose not to go home for various reasons had to be taken care of during the December 2011 winter break.
Reasons ranged from a desire to spend more time within the UWC environment to minimizing the expenditure of the college during these financially trying times. Students are not able to stay on campus during the Winter Breaks and after some profound brainstorming, an inter-UWC program with the UWC Maastricht was proposed as a solution.
Right from the beginning the program showed the potential to be so interesting and youthfully engaging that many students who had already booked their flights to go home had to endure the temptation to cancel their bookings just to join in.
We counted days and hours impatiently as we awaited the day of our departure. With a very excited and enthusiastic group of 36 students chaperoned by 4 staff members, we finally left our serene Flekke campus on the 14th of December 2011 and headed for the bustling streets of Maastricht.
Our first destination was Hamburg – the second largest city in Germany.
On the first day, we were met by 4 UWC alumni who took us to 4 different local schools where we made presentations about UWCs in general and later spoke about our unique experiences at RCN.
We are confident that these visits were quite fruitful as a lot of German students showed great interest in attending a presentation by UWC students and by the time we left their schools, we could see some of them had started working on collecting information to apply to their National Committee to take admission in a UWC.
On the second day, we went to the International Maritimes Museum in Hamburg where more than 40.000 items including model ships, construction plans, uniforms and maritime art were exhibited.
All the IB History and Geography we thought we had left behind for the holiday was suddenly brought to mind and enriched as we marveled at the sight of all those items.
After two exciting days in Hamburg we finally got to Maastricht. The whole group was warmly welcomed by Mr. Satyadeep Srivastava, the UWC Maastricht House Mentor together with some of the students there. The following morning we had a cozy meeting with UWC Maastricht Headmaster Mr. Simon Murray who also gave us a hearty welcome and gave us a brief introduction to life at UWC Maastricht (UWCM). Later he was presented with a book on the Nordic nations, a lovely patchwork painting and a jar of our very own ‘ibee’ honey by two of our accompanying staff members-Mr. Ashok Singh and Mrs. Madhulika Singh. These gifts were an expression of our sincere gratitude to UWCM for hosting us.
We spent a significant portion of our stay getting to know our UWCM counterparts and vice versa as we exchanged story upon story about or lives and experiences in the respective UWCs. It was fascinating to discover that the two UWCs have very different ways of fulfilling the common UWC ideology.
There were also a lot of contrasts. Located right in the middle of a city, UWCM exposes its students to the fast paced life of an urban Dutch society. In contrast, UWCRCN is located in Flekke, a village which has a population of apporximately 350 people (including us!) Whilst the UWCM students pick out whatever they can about Dutch language and culture through their interactions with their Dutch community, RCN students have full Nordic course designed for them. The course consists of Norwegian communication (language) classes and Nordic studies workshops and presentations.
The difference in locations also leads to our dissimilar extra-academic activities practices. In terms of service activities, UWCM cooperates with local organizations to arrange activities for their students through which way they can contribute their services to the surrounding community. On the other hand, at UWCRCN we tend to create our own activities and set up our own organizations and then try to enlist external support.
Another major difference was that the UWCM students have to cycle to school for about 15min(or walk for about 40min) every morning, something we struggled to come to terms with as we conveniently have most of our school facilities within a 5min walking distance. They also have a curfew and check-in times, another shock to which we soon became accustomed.
During our stay in Maastricht the UWCM students eagerly showed us around the city.The city of Maastricht in the Christmas season was so elegant with decorations everywhere from the big streets to small lanes.
One of the highlights in our “RCN – to – Maastricht diary” was the “Good-bye Loneliness” flash mob we performed in a mall on 22nd December as part of the annual Maastricht Christmas Run event.
This was organized by The Salvation Army in an effort to encourage people to break the loneliness that seems to have pervaded their society. Many people rushed out to the open area to see our flash mob. They smiled, clapped their hands, some could not help moving their bodies to the music with us. It gave us great joy and fulfilment!
Not long after the flash mob a group of nine RCN students volunteered to work for a local NGO- SGL which runs activity centers that cater and care for people with mental and physical challenges.
The RCN students were very delighted to work with the NGO, as the activities of the care center were very similar to the regular community service EACs we do at school. Most of the work included assisting the clients in working with tools in their art workshops, helping to remove their coats when they came and went in the morning and evening respectively.
We also assisted them with exercise, helped prepare lunch, cleaned the center and most enjoyably kept them company. ‘The most pleasant thing you can ever get in Maastricht-Netherlands is a Dutch humour from an old Dutch person when having lunch together.’ as mentioned, by one of the volunteers-Leonard Francis Vibbi. We ended our 4 day volunteering period with a short dance performance for the clients who we will always remember fondly and we are sure they will remember us too.
It was a sad morning indeed on the 2nd of January when we had to wave goodbye to our dear UWCM friends but thanks to facebook and skype we will definitely be in touch! The program made out break much more colorful and we are confident that in one way or another, each person found it to be a memorable time in their lives. We believe we have laid the foundation for future inter-UWC exchanges. Let us give a sincere thank you to UWCRCN and UWCM for the great Winter Break!
- Melisa, Leonard, Tabish and Chau
“I liked this opportunity given to students to get to know each other and the experience gathered from getting to know new places and countries. College programme like this one is a wonderful way to realize that teachers play an even more important role as ‘parents’ than their traditional teaching role. It is one of the best things I liked.”- Leonard Vibbi
