UWC Red Cross Nordic: Educating body and mind

In the February 2008 edition of United World we explored the work done by the Spanish national committee in partnership with the ONCE Foundation to select one disabled student a year. Most of the work done at this point was focused on selecting students who were visually impaired. UWC Red Cross Nordic has been working closely with the Haugland Rehabilitation Center that shares its campus in efforts to increase its outreach to students with other physical disabilities.

John Lawrenson, the college's Rektor, outlined the guiding principle behind this initiative, "UWC Red Cross Nordic subscribes to the fundamental Nordic belief in a society based on the principle of social solidarity - a society that gives all its citizens the right to freedom, social security and societal participation. In practice this means a culture where disabled people have equal opportunities to take part on all aspects of society and where disabled people are equal in all respects and fully integrated into their communities."

Creating access to all social and learning environments is essential in making the college accommodating for students with physical disabilities. Work has been focused on installing automatic doors to all public buildings on campus and building ramps to make these doors accessible. Paths have been widened, angles of walkways have been adjusted and one student house is being internally adapted. Bathrooms have now also been equipped with accessible facilities. "In a few cases, we have reduced the number of students in a room from five to four. We are determined to do everything we can to ensure that physical disabilities don't prohibit out students' education" says Arne Osland, Director of Development at the college. "In the future selection process, if a candidate has specific requirements due to a disability we will run an assessment so that we can make considerations about what kind of individual adaptations will need to be done, we'll then commit to making those adaptations to endure that the student can attend" Arne continues.

UWC Red Cross Nordic is now poised to begin its new initiative of selecting students who are victims of landmines. The first intake will begin in August 2011 with the selection of three students, one each from Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Vietnam. They will be selected by the national committee of their country using the same selection criteria used in standard UWC selections.

"In the preparation for the intake we have looked into how we can make use of the expertise at the Haugland Rehabilitation Center," Arne says. "A crucial part of this is to understand that our education is about giving the individual the courage and ability to expand their own limits - to achieve this there are many areas where direct support should not be given. We do not want to educate dependency, but to enable for an active life."

The landmine victim project represents a huge step forward in the college's commitment to actively recruiting students with disabilities and will play a big part in the future of that commitment. "It is our ambition that the recruitment of landmine victims shall carry on for many years and that we will recruit from a bread range of applicants," explains Arne. "This project can help to put focus on what great problems these explosives represent in many parts of the wold and will compliment the important work that the Red Cross and other organizations do in order to limit this damage."

This article was originally written for United World - April 2011