Video: Feng's story of coming to RCN

In this presentation, Feng from China talked about his experiences with coming to UWC Red Cross Nordic. Here are two videos of him answering questions from the participants:

Were you scared to come to RCNUWC alone?


What can we do to help someone who has a disability?

Workshop: Being disabled in class

Almost 1 in 7 people has some limits to mobility.

This physical disabilities workshop at UWC Red Cross Nordic started with all participants being blindfolded, because a visual impairment is the most common physical disability. They were sent into a classroom on their own, where they one by one had to find a seat. After this they were paired up and from only hearing the sentence "they see me rollin' they hatin'" they had to guess who their partner was. Finally, they got to take off the blind-folds and see if they were right. 

Apart from this, last week was perception week at Red Cross Nordic, with more workshops on visual impairments and a lot of students challenged themselves and tried going 'blind' for a day.

Following was a presentation of different physical disabilities as well as the Norwegian law that everyone should have an equal accessibility to facilities.

The workshop ended with a small quiz on the newly gained knowledge and a presentation from a disabled RCN student, telling about his experiences here.

Here is a video from the workshop:

How to make Red Cross Nordic more accessable

The following is a resume of the points made during a series of group discussions with students and teachers on how to make UWC Red Cross Nordic more disability friendly:

• Points raised:
• Smart Boards are good, but we need more of them
• Electronic doors need more attention and we need more education on how to use them. Why do they break? When do they break?
• Students are open minded and helpful
• Not all building are accessible. For example: Denmark House, Cantina, student houses, second floors, K-Building
• We need education on how to help, what to do, terminology, and information on specific cases
• Information about and from students and staff with disabilities
• Teachers should put more effort into supporting students
• The school should accept more people with disabilities, but only if they have the necessary facilities
• Snow shoveling should be handled better and by more people
• Does the school follow Norwegian law? Does the school receive money from the government to make things accessible? And if so where is the money going?
• We need more Info about Norwegian laws and finances
• Pathways are important: Student village to cantina, silent house and boat house are NOT accessible to all

• Suggestions for improvement:
• Signs to remind and explain about doors
• Salt instead of Gravel or alternative to gravel if salt is bad
• Bathroom in K-Building
• Accessibility to room K2
• Taking shoes of by door of houses to remove shoes from corridors. This also makes the houses cleaner and drier
• More light around campus
• An EAC focused on helping disabled students
• Permanent help to all who need it
• People should be hired to do the work that “volunteers” do now.
• Why are there not more volunteers and advertisers?
• Basic Training on disabilities for all students and staff: How, what, why, when
• Student Council needs to be more active on the issue
• Presentations in college meetings
• General Attitude amongst students and staff, not just physical aid
• We need more elevators
• We need more ramps

Workshop on disabilities, cultural sharing & solutions

This term's Global Concerns conference at UWC Red Cross Nordic was on discrimination with four subtopics: Ehtnic minorities, religion, women's rights and disabilities. Our workshop was named "Disabilities, cultural sharing & solutions". In the workshop we started with a country profile before the actual workshop, so the participants could se their way of thinking of disabilities before and after. In the workshop, the participants discussed the following questions in smaller groups:

• What is a disability in your culture?
• Are everybody disabled?
• Define disabilities, both physical & mental.
• Is impairment; your lack of ability to execute a task or societies lack of adjustment so you can execute a task?

While discussing the questions, many interesting perspectives came up. We showed them the universal symbol of disabilities to make them start thinking, and we heard things like, "the blind guy", "the hand language", and "the symbol of stupidity". They compared their country profiles, and came up with a couple of very important points regarding treatment of the impaired: Firstly they saw that even though you are disabled, you can't do anything about it, and you have to learn to live with it. Secondly, they saw that having a disability doesn't make you completely useless. For example, a person without legs can still program computers. Ultimately, they realized that there is discrimination against the people and there was a lot of talk about the definitions.

Thus we showed them the definitions. We gave them the opportunity to try writing down the definitions, with surprising results! The participants tended to write too specific definitions. We showed the World Health Organization's definitions, so they could compare and see where they lacked. Generally, the participants saw that they needed to be broader. In the end, they wrote new definitions and came up with a very simple version, being abnormal.

We ended the workshop by looking at the question "is impairment your lack of ability to execute a task, or societies lack of adjustment so you can execute a task?" The question was heavily discussed, and all the groups came up with a general answer: directly it is your disability that is making you impaired, but since being abnormal is part of the definition, the society sets the standards, and then they also disable you. The participants also felt that it was the society’s responsibility to make certain adjustments since the disabled also are adjusting.

Fredrik & Bernadette - RCNUWC