Get up Stand Up: Land mine victims at RCN

Together with the Norwegian Red Cross, Haugland Rehabiltation Centre and HIFUS, the College is offering a two year program for education and rehabilitation for Land Mine Victims. From 2012 this program will be supported financially by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

Tesfahunegn Sima (Ethiopia) and Edwin Gonzales (Nicaragua) are the first two participants.

In October Tesfa and Edwin helped out at the annual “TV-aksjonen” – the biggest annual national fundraising campaign in Norway, which this year was for Norsk Folkehjelp and their campaign for clearing land from land mines. In the NRK studio they were interviewed by celebrities Erik Thorstvedt and Haddy N’Djie about their own personal experience. Tesfa and Edwin told about the fatal moments in their lives, when they as children paid the price for being close to exploding bombs. The two boys have moved on to gain strength independence in life. It has been a dream for them to come to Norway, to gain their scholarship at UWC Red Cross Nordic and get engaged in all kinds of activities with fellow students from all over the world. And as they grow and learn the two of them wants to be contributors for creating a better future. “Be Hope” is the artist name Tesfa is using as a singer and indeed the name many of his fellow students use when talking to him. On their way from the TV studio, Tesfa and Edwin were introduced to the Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg. On Campus students did their own fundraising for this campaign. In Førde and Dale they joined in with locals in door to door collection for the same purpose.

Click HERE and go to time 23:20 to wacth the interview

This article was originally written by Arne Osland for the the 2011-12 UWC Red Cross Nordic annual report.