NorthOneOMICA (P) 175/11/2007 Vol 2 June 2008

The Alumni Magazine of the United World College of South East Asia

Alumni Profi les

Remembering Beluntu

Visiting Bosnia/Herzegovina

Reunions

Class Notes

Alumni servicesEvery student who leaves UWCSEA, re-gardless of how long they were here, is automatically a member of the UWCSEA alumni community. Some of the services that we offer alumni include:

OneºNorthThe Alumni Magazine of UWCSEA, fi rst published in December 2007, is pub-lished twice per year. Please send your contributions and/or suggestions to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

UWCSEA Alumni online communityThe UWCSEA alumni website located at http://alumni.uwcsea.edu.sg is password protected and allows you to maintain your own profi le, search for and contact other registered members, post photos and blogs, stay informed about news and events, etc.

Friends of UWCSEA online communityA new password-protected website has been launched for the parents of former students of the College to enable mem-bers to stay connected with other parents as well as the College. It is located at http://friends.uwcsea.edu.sg.

Reunions and get-togethersAn annual reunion of the 30 year, 20 year and 10 year anniversary classes will be held each August. Other class reunions and alumni gatherings take place in various locations throughout the year, planned by both UWCSEA and its alumni. Watch the alumni website for updates and details, and let us help promote your events.

Alumni eBriefThe alumni e-newsletter is emailed regularly and contains brief news and information to keep you updated and

informed. Send us any news you would like to include.

DuniaThe College magazine is published throughout the academic year. It con-tains College news and reports of events and activities, as well as a brief alumni section. Please send us your suggestions for profi les.

Career servicesAlumni are welcome to post job openings or your own resumé in the career section of the site.

Visits, tours and other requestsWe are always happy to help in any way we can. Send your requests to us at alumni@uwcsea.edu.sg. If you are in Singapore and would like to drop in for a visit or a tour of the campus, we would be more than happy to show you around.

Number of registered members on the UWCSEA Alumni website (by country of residence)

Other countries represented: Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Barbados, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bonaire, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cayman Islands, Chile, Cote d’Ivoire, East Timor, Egypt, Ghana, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Mali, Mongolia, New Caledonia, Oman, Panama, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sri

Lanka, St. Maarten, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Turkey, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Zambia

OUR ONLINE COMMUNITY

2 Alumni services Helping you to stay connected to UWCSEA and to each other.

4 Letter from the Head Read about developments at UWCSEA

5 Note from the Alumni offi ce Welcome to the second issue of the alumni magazine.

5 Graduation 2008! Graduation 24 May 2008

6 Alumni Profi le Hawk Ostby (Class of 1985) Hollywood Screenwriter

8 Global Concerns Project week trip inspires new UWCSEA Global Concern

10 Sport at UWCSEA Cricket at UWCSEA Ashwin Bhat (Class of 2006)

11 UWCSEA Projects The Memory of Trees UWCSEA Foundation

12 Values in Practice (ViP) Jonathan Chew (Class of 2000) Inspiring a global organisation to contribute to poverty reduction

14 Values in Practice (ViP) Musa Henry Kpaka (Class of 2004) wins ‘Projects for Peace’ award

15 Awards Grade 12 awards day

16 Alumni Profi le Carmen Oria (Class of 1975) Interpreter and International Relations Offi cer, Chile

18 History Remembering Beluntu

21 The Alumni website Useful information

22 Gap Year Opportunities for alumni

23 Gap Year Jen Mackie’s (Class of 2006) Gap Year experience in Cambodia

24 Travel Adam Jones (Class of 1981) visits Mostar

26 Travel Updates UWC Mostar Tim Goulding (Class of 1987) Akihiko Hoshide (Class of 1987)

27 Recent Reunions Photos from recent get-togethers

28 Classnotes

31 Upcoming Reunions

Editor Brenda Whately

Assistant Editor Prapti Sherchan

Layout Lenca Yew

OneºNorth is published by United World College of South East Asia twice per year for alumni, staff and friends of UWCSEA. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited without written consent. Send your address change to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg and/or update your profi le on the UWCSEA alumni website. We welcome your feedback. Send your comments to alumnimaga-zine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Please send your articles and/or suggestions for articles, as well as your class notes, for the next issue to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Cover photo : A vine provides welcome refreshment during a Beluntu foray. Photo courtesy of Brian Green. Do you know who this student is?Please send your suggestions for future cover photos to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg

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Contents

UWCSEA East Campus 2010 (Artist Impression)

UWCSEA East Campus 2008-2010

UWCSEA Dover Campus

Printed by Interprint Communications Pte Ltd

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Julian Whiteley

from the Head of CollegeLetter

The College continues to evolve at a rapid pace. We are currently re-writing the Middle School curriculum to create greater cross-curricular links and as ap-

propriate integrate elements that relate to the UWC movement’s mission statement. We are hopeful that once completed, this curriculum will follow a similar path to the Introductory TOK (Theory of Knowledge) course pioneered at the College. This has evolved into a GCSE entitled ‘Global Perspectives’ and is now available to students across the world.

Global Concerns remain a unique part of the College and the Board has granted a sabbatical year to Anthony Skillicorn (‘Skilly’). He will devote his time to enhancing our links with a number of Global Concerns, writing a book on the development of service within UWCSEA and also speaking at various international conferences in order to encourage other schools to follow our lead. We are also expanding the Gap Year programme or 3YO. Currently very few students take a Gap Year before going on to university. Our aspiration is that within fi ve years 10% of the graduat-ing class will be involved in one of a number of projects we are setting up in South East Asia. We also hope that we will be able to extend this to alumni who might want to become involved. Should anyone be interested would they please contact Brenda Whately, our Alumni Director.

We are set to increase the number of National Committee Scholars at the College by two per year over the next seven years bringing the total number to just under 60. In addition, this year we will be accepting two scholars into Grade 8. One is coming from the Mercy Centre in Bangkok, with whom we have had a longstanding relationship, and the other is currently being selected by the Cambodian National Committee. We believe that their presence will bring an added dimension to the Middle School.

In terms of physical developments at the College, I mentioned in the last edition of OneºNorth that we would be expanding the College by creating a second campus. Work on the transition Primary School is nearing completion and we are optimistic that it will open in September 2008 with a full complement of 400 students. The design for the permanent facility has been approved and we are excited about the prospect of the ‘state of the art’ campus. The campus will contain a number of in-novative features which will enhance its ‘green’ credentials and we anticipate that it will be the fi rst school in Singapore to achieve the Building and Construction Authority Greenmark Gold Plus Award. Pictures of the East Campus can be viewed on the College website.

In closing, may I just mention that during my travels this year, mainly to recruit teaching staff, we have held reunions for alumni in Melbourne, Hong Kong and London. It has been a pleasure to meet so many of you at such events and I look forward to many more occasions in the future.

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Note from the alumni offi ce

The graduation ceremony of the Class of 2008 was held on 24 May with over 300 students from 50 nationalities becoming the newest members of the UWCSEA alumni community. The guest speaker was Melissa Kwee, an alumna from the Class of 1990, who delivered a moving and inspirational speech. Congratulations to the Class of 2008!

Please see the website and the next issue of OneºNorth for photos of the graduation celebration!

2008!Graduation

As another academic year comes to an end, we welcome well over 300 new alumni from the graduating class as well as those leaving from other grades. We wish them all good luck in their future endeavours!

We hope you enjoy this second issue of the alumni magazine. In it you’ll read about an engineer inspiring his organisation to contribute to poverty reduction; students starting up a new Global Concern; a screenwriter with a blockbuster movie and an academy award nomination; an interpreter who promotes the teaching and learning of the English language in Chile; an astronaut travelling to the International Space Station, and more. Please keep the news and profi le suggestions coming!

We have had a few enquiries from alumni wishing to take some time away from their career, or time between university and career to participate in a Global Concern type of activity. Because of your feedback, we are looking into opening up the Gap Year programme to alumni and have created a new group on the alumni site called Volunteer Programmes. We have also added a ViP (Values in Practice) group on the site to celebrate alumni social and environmental initiatives and a Mentor group, again due to your feedback, which will allow current students and recent grads to connect with willing alumni for advice regarding university choice, career information, etc. Please have a look. We’d appreciate your feedback.

A new website, similar to the alumni site, has recently been launched for the parents of UWCSEA alumni, to help them to stay connected with each other and the College after they leave Singapore or their children graduate. Please invite your parents to join! The site is located at http://friends.uwcsea.edu.sg.

This year we were lucky to recruit a great group of Grade 11 students to participate in our Alumni Council and we look forward to expanding the role of the Council members in the coming year. They’ll be helping out with the upcoming reunion in Singapore this August. We hope to see you there if your class is celebrating!

Have a great summer/winter, depending on where you are, and be sure to let us know if you are planning any reunions or get-togethers in future. We’d be happy to help support them.

Keep in touch!Brenda Whatelyalumni@uwcsea.edu.sg

Some of the alumni council members

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Academy Award-Nominated Screenwriter

UWCSEA 1983-1985

ALUMNI PROFILE

Hawk OstbyAfter graduating with his IB diploma, Hawk moved to the United States where he pursued a degree in fi lm. When asked to describe the impact on him of his time at UWCSEA and the direction of his life and career since leaving Singapore, he says:

“I really loved my years at UWCSEA, and I credit the programme, the excellent teachers and my brilliant peers for making learning fun, and for showing me the value of a solid work ethic. What I took away from my two years there is an invaluable lesson that I use every day: with hard work, anything is possible. And let’s face it, once you’ve stared down the IB exam, everything else in life - like writer’s block, child birth and death - is pretty much a cakewalk!

When I left Singapore I was pretty clueless about what I wanted to do with my life. By chance I got stuck in the Communications School at Boston University (which is where they stowed all the ‘weirdos’ back in the day), and I happened to take a course in film. I just loved it.

Four years later I proudly strutted into the workforce with a fi lm degree,

which I quickly realised is like trying to cross the Atlantic in a leaky dinghy while affl icted with dysentery and a broken right arm. In other words, my prospects of ever eating were less than enormous.

My mother’s hints, delivered with the sweet, gentle nudging of a sledgehammer, that ‘accountants make a great living’ were starting to take hold.

In 1990 however, I managed to con myself into menial employment at Showtime Networks in New York City. In my spare time I started writing screenplays ‘on spec,’ and was introduced to another ‘loser’ there who was also trying to starve himself to death by writing. His name was Mark Fergus, and we’ve been collaborating for 12 years since.

“And let’s face it, once you’ve stared down the IB exam, everything else in life - like writer’s block, child birth and death - is pretty much a cakewalk!”

H awk Ostby, formerly Haakon Ostby, most

recently known for co-writing the box offi ce hit, Ironman, hails from Oslo, Norway, where he lived all of his young life until moving to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with his family in 1981. Two years later, faced with a decision regarding where he would complete his fi nal two years of high school in a programme that would be accredited in his native country, his parents narrowed the options down to two, and as Hawk puts it, “Given the choice to return to frost-bitten Oslo or be swathed in tropical luxury at UWCSEA, it was, as the saying goes, a no-brainer.” Hawk chose to come to UWCSEA, boarding in Senior House for the next two years.

Hawk and his daughter

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I was always enamoured with the idea of making a living wielding a pen, but had no pedigree or confi dence in that area. It wasn’t until Boston University when I worked up the courage to combine my love for escapism with my mild allergy to reality. I just picked up a book on fi lm writing, (Syd Field’s Screenwriting, I believe), and started hacking away, thinking success was crouched just around the corner.

In retrospect it was a crazy thing to embark on, and if someone had warned me about all the sweaty heartache I’d have to expend to get a piece sold, I may have balked right then and there. I don’t recommend self-delusion to anyone, but it’s really worked for me.

Ultimately, the awesome thing about being a writer is that you get to play God of your own little make-believe world. You get to decide who lives and dies, what sins get punished and what virtues get rewarded. It’s enormously satisfying and it feels stupid to call it ‘work’ because, really, it’s more like play.

“Ultimately, the awesome thing about being a writer is that you get to play God of your own little make-

believe world.”

Hawk - Grade 12, bottom row far left

In 1996 we managed to jam our bony feet in the door by selling a thriller script to HBO; what would later become the ‘unremarkable’ movie

“In 2007 we had the great privilege of writing Iron Man for the amazing

director Jon Favreau, and spent four months

weaving through Southern California, blowing things up with the production.”

Hawk (centre) with actor Piper Perabo, actor Guy Pearce, and director Mark Fergus at the after party following the LA premiere of ‘First Snow’ at The Writers Guild Theater

Consequence. We started making the rounds in Hollywood with a script that we had written and intended to fi lm ourselves, called First Snow. We didn’t get fi nancing for quite awhile, but in the meantime we fed ourselves by adapting books and re-writing scripts for studios. Among these were Children of Men, which would ultimately score us a pair of tickets to the Kodak Theatre on Oscar night.

In 2007 we had the great privilege of writing Iron Man for the amazing director Jon Favreau, and spent four months weaving through Southern California, blowing things up with the production. The movie opened 2 May 2008 and stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terence Howard.

Currently, we are writing a Sci-fi Western called Cowboys & Aliens for Dreamworks and Imagine Enterta inment.”

Hawk currently lives in Vermont with his wife Monica and their three children, Aidan 9, Oliver 7 and Elsa 2, along with what he describes as his four-legged assistant and foot warmer of the canine variety, Koda.

Hawk may be reached through the alumni website.

Iron Man was #1 at the box offi ce over opening weekend, taking $201 million world-wide.

Please send your profi le suggestions for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

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GLOBAL CONCERNS

Lucie Teoh, Class of 2008Nikita More, Class of 2008

As soon as we read the list of possible destinations for Project Week, we

knew immediately we wanted to go to Ranthambhore, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. Firstly, the attraction of visiting India, a country home to a culture that is incomparable in terms of its vibrancy and diversity, one which is on one hand the origin of the ancient Buddhist and Hindu religions, and on the other hand a rapidly globalising economy, posed a duality that fascinated us. This, combined with the chance to see India’s national animal, the Bengal Tiger, up close in its natural habitat, was simply too enticing to resist.

We began researching and contacted Kate Lewis, the Project Week co-ordi-nator, for guidance. She directed us to a member of staff who previously had contacts in Ranthambhore, but due to the unfortunate fact that no one could remember the last time a Project Week group had actually visited Ranthamb-hore, we were left with a considerable degree of diffi culty in obtaining contacts there. However, we fi nally got hold of our contacts and began making arrange-ments for what we thought then would only be a short trip, but turned out to be a physical and emotional journey in which we made friendships and memories we will cherish for life. The heart and soul of Ranthambhore is the Ranthambhore National Park. Known for its diverse and easy-to-spot wildlife, this park has attracted many tourists over the years, many of whom come specifi cally to catch a glimpse of its tigers. But now, the park is under ma-jor threat. The Ranthambhore National Park is surrounded by approximately a

hundred small villages that rely solely on the park for sustenance. The villag-ers rely on the trees for cooking fuel, on the vegetation to graze their cattle and on the hunting of bush meat as well as larger predators, like tigers and leopards for income. The villagers’ activities have put the park under a lot of pressure, which is evident through the declining population of wildlife.

In an effort to relieve the external pres-sure on the park, Prakartik Society, an organisation which indirectly helps the park and its inhabitants, was set up by former park ranger Mr Fateh Singh Rathore and is now headed by his son Dr Goverdhan Singh Rathore, both familiar faces on Animal Planet. Prakartik Society runs the Ranthambhore Sevika Hospital, which along with providing basic medi-cal care and surgeries at minimal or no cost, runs a family planning programme which educates villagers about the benefi ts of family planning, thus reduc-ing the overall population reliant on its resources. The society also runs a project which involves the installation of a bio-gas converter in villages to convert cow dung into methane gas used as an alter-native fuel for cooking, rather than wood taken from inside the park. For families

who cannot afford this, a plant nursery, also run by Prakartik Society, runs a “Wood for Wood Programme” in which saplings of a fast grow-ing tree are given to the villagers to plant and care for. Along with the wood they ob-tain from the trees for fuel, they are g i v e n s m a l l sums of m o n e y depending on the survival of their trees over time. Fateh Public School, also under the belt of the So-ciety, educates children from all the villages surrounding Ranthambhore at fees that suit each family’s fi nancial con-dition. The lower fee charged for girls, encourages more parents to educate their daughters. All of these efforts by Prakartik Society reduce the villagers’ reliance on the park in various ways. We were lucky enough to experience

inspires new UWCSEA Global Concern

(and resurrects old one)

Project Week trip

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each part of Prakartik Society’s efforts during our visit.

TigerWatch, an NGO started by ex-Prakartik society director Mr Fateh Singh Rathore, works hand in hand with Pra-kartik Society. Poaching is the biggest threat to the tigers today and TigerWatch aims to protect them by dealing with the root of the cause; the poachers. They liaise with the poaching tribe of the area, the Mogiya, to provide alternative sources of living such as selling handi-crafts made by the women, providing ex-poachers with a chance to rehabilitate themselves by buying them camels for tourism or by planting grains at the plant nursery and transferring them to the vil-lages where they can be harvested and sold for income. TigerWatch also runs a school for Mogiya boys in the hope that

education will pre-vent them from be-c o m i n g poachers like their f a t h e r s and fore-fathers.

On returning from Project Week, the process of setting up a new Global Concern to support TigerWatch began with meeting Anthony Skillicorn, an indispensable part of the UWCSEA Global Concerns (GC) programme. We were given a time slot in which we would present our ideas and aims to the ‘GC Exec’ a group of students selected to represent each category of Global Concerns, including Empowerment, Children, Environment, etc., as well as a representative from each individual GC at UWCSEA. Their approval resulted in the incorporation of ‘TigerWatch’ into the pre-existing Promoting Animal Wel-fare (PAW) GC. This was thought to be more appropriate, considering our core aim to protect the tigers in Ranthamb-hore National Park and to raise money to support various sustainable development projects in the area surrounding the park. This arrangement has worked out well as we are able to share resources with PAW, and have also managed to resurrect the ‘Care for the Tiger’ movement originally started by PAW back in the 1980’s.

Due to the dynamic social activities that the college offers, we were presented with many opportunities to raise funds

as well as awareness for TigerWatch. Prior to Project Week, we organized an Easter Raffl e for Grade 5 and used the money raised to purchase edu-cational books to add to the library of the Fateh Public School which we visited during our trip. Our fi rst ‘offi cial’ fundraiser as a GC was on United Nations Night, undoubtedly the most popular on-campus event. At our decorated stall we sold an array of items, including handicrafts made by the women of the Mogi-ya t r ibe a l o n g with ‘Save the Tiger’ t - s h i r t s , p o s t e r s , postcards and book-m a r k s designed by us and generously sponsored by the Spandana foundation.

Those and various other fundraisers have enabled us, as a GC, to aid TigerWatch’s progress in its efforts to save the tiger. If nothing else, we have managed to raise some awareness of the plight of the tiger, and we hope that with this education, people will make an effort to aid our cause which is crucial in preventing the extinction of India’s tiger and stemming its already dwindling numbers.

Seeing the spirit of the people we met in Ranthambhore, and the passion they channel into their work has, and will continue to have, a profound effect on

the way we view the world and our own lives. This experience empowered us to seize the opportunity to make a constructive difference in the lives of the people and the place that impacted us so greatly. The experience of setting up and running a GC has been an exhilarating one which hasn’t necessarily brought success at every step but nevertheless has taught us something every step of the way.

The Prakartik Society, along with Tiger-Watch, is the only hope for Ranthamb-hore National Park and its inhabitants. Not only do they help save the tiger, but along the way also improve the lives of the villagers. If you wish to support us or obtain further information, please write to tigerwatchgc@gmail.com. Or, to get in touch with TigerWatch in Ranthambhore directly, contact Dr Dharmendra Khan-dal at dharmkhandal@gmail.com.

1A requirement for Grade 11 students to engage in a self-organised service or adventure project within Asia for a minimum period of fi ve days.

Lucie Teoh

and

Nikita More

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SPORT AT UWCSEA

Ashwin Bhat Singapore National Team Cricketer UWCSEA 1998 - 2004

The United World College Cricket Club was initiated in the mid 1970s when teacher and Singapore Cricket Club player, John Goodban, set up some social and student cricket on Saturday afternoons, playing only away games at fi rst. In 1976 he organised a group of boys to develop a pitch, and two practice nets were constructed. In 1980, teams were entered into the Junior and Senior Leagues, and in 1982 a Senior trophy was won. In 1988 the College upgraded the cricket facilities, expanded the membership and fi elded three sides in the leagues. In 1990 UWCSEA was the only school in Singapore with a regular cricket team. By 1995 there were 21 different schools playing in the local leagues.

To d a y, c r i c k e t remains a part of our College programme of sport. Currently t h e r e a r e t w o Under 15 boys’ teams, two Senior boys’ teams and a girls’ team which was re-established last year after a few years’ gap. The Senior teams travelled to Darwin Australia to compete in June 2007, and the Under 15 teams competed in Adelaide in October. There are hopes to take the Senior teams to compete in the UK next year.

I joined UWCSEA in Grade 5, August 1998, as a kid wearing pink glasses, and left at the end of Grade 10. Don’t ask me why it all began with pink glasses, but what I can tell you is that the next six years were among the most memorable years of my life. Who I am today is largely credited (or blamed, depending on who you are!) to my time spent there.

I left UWCSEA for Hong Kong, where I completed the IB Diploma at Sha Tin College, a member of Hong Kong’s English Schools Foundation.

The sport of cricket has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I truly gained interest in the game when (apologies to all Pakistanis) India beat Pakistan in the quarter-fi nals of the 1996 Cricket World Cup. That match kick-started an undying interest and love for the game.

I represented UWCSEA in cricket at various levels including Under 12, Under 15, and fi nally, the Senior A team. We played and won numerous tournaments. UWCSEA established itself as one of the strongest, if not the strongest school cricket team in Singapore. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there was a period of time when UWCSEA’s school team could take on and possibly defeat Singapore’s national junior-level teams.

To be quite honest, I’m not sure to this day how I was selected to the Singapore National Team in 2003. My guess is that my long-time (and legendary) coach, Grant Stanley, had a part to play in recommending me to the Singapore Cricket Association. Whatever may be the reason for my surprise selection, I enjoyed the challenges of rigorous cricket immensely. I was selected along with Arjun Shete (good friend and

Cricketer of the Year in UWCSEA in 2005 and 2006) as one of the youngest players in Singapore’s Under 19 squad. As a representative of the Singapore cricket team, I had the opportunity to play teams from around the region and hone my skills against other tough competitors.

As dramatic as it may sound, I had to curtail my cricket career in Singapore due to a serious fracture (received on the cricket fi eld, of course) to one of my fingers.

Unfortunately, by the time my fi nger healed, it was

GCSE time. Coming from a family that holds academics in high regard, I had to put a stop to cricket. Soon after, I was off to Hong Kong and so ended my eight month long stint as a Singapore cricketer.

Cricket remains a big part of my life. I continued playing in Hong Kong, and even got a call up to the Hong Kong national squad. While I did not offi cially represent Hong Kong since I was not a permanent resident (PR) there, I did continue to play competitive cricket while completing the IB. Now, at Babson College in the US, just outside of Boston, I am pursuing a double major in Finance and Economics (yeah, it’s a lot of work) and I am a member of the Babson Cricket Club. We have recently played (and defeated, I must add) many other colleges including Harvard, Boston University and Bentley College in the Boston region.

It would be fair to say that you would probably have to paralyze me to stop me from playing cricket.

Ashwin may be reached through the alumni website.

Ashwin playing a cricket match in Hong Kong, 2006

UWCSEA Girls Cricket Team 1997/98 UWCSEA Boys Cricket Team 1997/98

Cricket at UWCSEA in 1988/89

The UWCCC

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St John’s/UWCSEA Head’s House (mid-1960s)

Revisiting the campus years after gradu-ation, alumni seek out familiar land-

marks among the newer classroom blocks, playgrounds and all-weather pitches. The pool on the site of the current tent plaza is a legendary example, but for some the place of pilgrimage may be as simple as a much loved tree.

Michael Taylor (1981) recalls a large mango tree by the old boarding house near Dover Road: “We spent hours throwing things up into the tree (a rope with something heavy on the end was the best tool for the job) and then selling the mangoes, a green and sour variety, across the road at the HDB fl ats.”

Old photographs in Interscol and on the website “Memories of Singapore” provide fascinating glimpses of mere saplings that are now fern-bearded giants and other trees that apparently no longer exist. It would be great to have more memories and more images.

Later this year I propose to start a student research activity with the objective of creat-ing an online database of distinctive trees at - or adjoining - UWCSEA. These might include the rain trees outside the former headmaster’s house that are currently a nesting site for a pair of spotted wood owls; various trees planted by graduating classes and distinguished visitors; the weeping wil-low in the little Japanese garden outside the Main Hall; the jackfruit trees near the bus

bay; and a couple of tall hardwoods behind the Administration block.

The database, comprising botanical informa-tion, local lore, photographs (old and new) and quotes from students or staff (past and present), would help foster an appreciation of the beauty, utility and emotional signifi cance of our trees.

What are your memories of trees at the col-lege? Do you have any photos you can share with us? Did your class plant a tree when graduating? Are you aware of trees that were transplanted to make way for something else? Please write to me if you have something to share at fme@uwcsea.edu.sg. But, as with trees, do not expect instant results!

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come - Chinese proverb

Frankie Meehan UWCSEA Teacher since ‘98TheMemory of Trees

A plea for photos and memories of the trees at UWCSEA

UWCSEA PROJECTS

Th e C o l l e g e i s d e l i g h t e d t o a n n o u n c e the launch of the UWCSEA Foundation. The purpose of the Foundation is to support the mission and strategic aims of the College. It will be the medium through which our friends and supporters may contribute to the educational programmes and development of the College.

We have thought carefully about launching this initiative and one of the key factors in the decision is the support, passion, commitment and enthusiasm of our alumni. I have recently had the pleasure of conversing

Launch of the UWCSEA Foundation

with graduates from 1978 and 2008 and, despite 30 years separating their experience at the College, they both speak of very similar threads that defi ned their education. In particular, the values instilled by the service programme, the challenge of the expeditions and activities programmes, the respect and understanding associated with a diverse, multicultural environment, and the confi dence, independence and initiative that defi nes a UWCSEA education.

The Foundation will seek the support of individuals, families, corporations and other foundations in its aim to further enhance the quality of our educational programmes, to ensure we continue to deliver a holistic, values-based education that prepares our students to take responsibility for shaping a better world. In particular, we would like

to promote opportunities to support our scholarship programme, outreach initiatives, endowment and building funds.

I hope you enjoy reading this edition of the Alumni magazine, and will have the chance to review the inaugural UWCSEA philanthropy report and the most recent copy of Dunia. Both publications highlight some of the outstanding work that our current community is involved in, and the difference they are making to the lives of others.

If you would like to make any suggestions, or become more involved in the work of the Foundation, please e-mail me at dsh@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Dave ShepherdDirector of College Advancement

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VALUES IN PRACTICE

Jonathan Chew attended UWCSEA from 1995, graduating from the IB programme in 2000. He went on to Imperial College London, and after achieving a master’s degree in engineering, joined Arup, an international engineering fi rm, as a geo-technical engineer. Shortly after joining Arup, Jonathan set up the Poverty Action Network (PAN) in 2005 with another engineer in their Leeds offi ce, to provide a network for those in the organisation wishing to take action and make a dif-ference in poverty alleviation.

The PAN’s central aims are to connect globally those staff with an interest in poverty alleviation; to develop aware-ness and knowledge of poverty allevia-tion issues; to enable staff to become informed about opportunities, relevant events, organisations and placements; and to motivate, facilitate and support staff in related initiatives. Jonathan says, “We set up the network to raise aware-ness of poverty related issues within Arup. I also wanted to pool together the existing knowledge Arup had in poverty relief work, into one network. I realised that I was part of an industry and a com-pany that could make a difference and challenge governments to tackle poverty, using engineers in a vital role.”

Since its inception, the organisational team has expanded across the world to offi ces in the UK, Europe, Africa, Austra-lia, East Asia and the Americas in order to facilitate wider involvement. Members provide a strategic overview of activity

Stand Up Against Poverty London 2007

in their region, support local events and liaise with a variety of NGOs. They are encouraged to build regional teams of volunteers to get involved locally and ensure continuity.

The PAN operates an intranet site which contains a range of information includ-ing data on humanitarian projects and experiences of people within the com-pany, standards and background infor-mation on a collection of poverty-related subjects, as well as the company policy on overseas work and secondments. The online forum on the intranet site allows discussion of key issues and facilitates the provision of technical support, or location of individuals who can provide

support, for those working in the fi eld.In addition, the PAN operates a monthly talk series in which internal and external speakers present to up to 150 attendees through teleconferencing and Arup’s ‘See & Share’ presentation technology. The PAN has also enabled Arup people with connections to NGOs to share these with others in the fi rm. Examples of this engagement include:

Engineers Against Poverty (EAP)PAN members have reviewed EAP reports and provided a consultant’s perspective.

RedR (International Disaster Relief Charity)Fundraising and awareness raising for “Wear Red for RedR” day and RedR-IHE’s Relief Challenge.

Introduction to the Values in Practice (ViP) programme

The UWCSEA Alumni ViP programme has been put in place to showcase the initiatives of alumni who continue to carry out the values and ideals of the UWC movement. The programme invites alumni to share their social and en-

vironmental projects with other alumni who may be interested in reading about them, becoming involved themselves or gathering information about setting up a similar project. We know that a great many of our alumni are involved in making a difference to the lives of others. Please let us know if you are involved in a project or know of someone else’s project which should be profi led here and/or on the alumni website.

Please read on about alumnus, Jonathan Chew’s Poverty Alleviation Network set up to encourage and enable fellow employees of his company to become involved and make a difference, as well as alumnus Musa Henry Kpaka’s youth development initiatives in Sierra Leone.

Playing a key role in inspiring a global organisation to contribute to poverty reduction

Jonathan Chew UWCSEA 1995 - 2000

“The PAN’s central aims are to connect globally those staff

with an interest in poverty alleviation; to develop aware-ness and knowledge of poverty

alleviation issues; to enable staff to become informed

about opportunities, relevant events, organisations and

placements and to motivate, facilitate and support staff in

related initiatives.”

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Photo (left): Arup staff participating in Wear Red for RedR 2007

“We set up the network to raise awareness of poverty-re-lated issues within Arup. I also wanted to pool together the

existing knowledge Arup had in poverty relief work, into one network. I realised that I was part of an industry and a com-

pany that could make a dif-ference and challenge govern-ments to tackle poverty, using

engineers in a vital role.”Jonathan Chew

EWB UK National Conference 2006 participants

WaterAidThe PAN is a key mechanism for actualis-ing Arup’s substantial support for this in-ternational charity that aims to overcome poverty by enabling the world’s poorest people to gain access to safe water, sani-tation and hygiene education.

Please send your ViP profi le suggestions for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Engineers Without Borders (EWB)Many PAN members around the world have become engaged with EWB to provide expertise and also to learn. Links between EWB-UK societies and Arup regional offi ces already exist and are being developed, including partici-pation within the EWB-UK Professional Network.

The PAN, Jonathan says, provides a mechanism for maintaining the energy and enthusiasm generated by EWB as its student members move into the work-force. EWB is becoming enormously successful and is catalysing a funda-mental change in the understanding, perspectives and expectations of young engineers. Internal networks that give graduate engineers an opportunity to maintain and develop their interest while they move through the ranks, will main-tain this momentum as these engineers move into positions of infl uence or into the international development fi eld.

The future for the PAN is bright. The network is seeking to widen staff involve-ment in poverty issues and broaden the range of ways to engage and inspire staff. The organisational team are looking to further build on the strong UK core of the network, and to strengthen the network as a global group.

Jonathan may be reached through the UWCSEA alumni website.

Jonathan Chew (top left) and other Arup staff at EWB UK National Conference 2006

Interscol photo of Jonathan (2000)

“The network is seeking to widen staff involvement in

poverty issues and broaden the range of ways to engage and

inspire staff.”

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VALUES IN PRACTICE

Where are you in your education right now?I’ll be graduating next year with a double major in Economics and French - a bit later than my peers, because of my Gap Year. However, the Gap experience was very rewarding for me and I would recommend it to anybody. I was able to grow both intellectually and socially and gained a lot of independence. It also gave me the opportunity to fi gure out what I wanted out of my college education.

How did the war in Sierra Leone affect you personally?The war impacted me a lot. First I was out of school for a year, there was no school in the whole country. I was very fortunate to have had a dad who wanted education for all of his children. I had some home schooling, whilst some of my friends went to fi ght. Economically, my family suffered a lot. At the height of the civil war we had at least three or four families staying with my family at any one point in time. My dad fed everyone, so we went from three meals a day, to two a day, to one a day, and then to one big bowl for me and my three brothers a day.

As a recipient of a “Davis 100 Projects for Peace” grant, how did you use the special opportunity you were given to invest in your home country?I saw the grant as an opportunity to replicate in Sierra Leone what I’d achieved in my Kenya Gap Year. I wanted young people in Sierra Leone to take similar initiatives in the developments of their communities. With the grant, I organised a three day National Youth Empowerment workshop in Bo. The workshop attracted about 167 students from all over Sierra Leone, 20 teachers, university professors and some government offi cials. At this

workshop young people were motivated and challenged to participate in nation building through community service and volunteerism. To me it was very rewarding to see the overwhelming response from the young people. It was obviously not very easy to do, since the national elections were just around the corner. Parents were skeptical and some schools thought my efforts were driven by potential political gains. But I was able to dispel all those concerns and obtain a great result from the project. Money was another challenge since my budget was more than the grant I received from the Davis Foundation. I did some fundraising at Whitman and the administration also donated to meet my budget gap.

Have you been able to build on your experience since then? Yes! As a result of last summer’s project, I was able to form Youth Development Initiatives (YDI) at Whitman, a group for students who are committed to community service and to creating change globally. Our goal is to raise funds every year and go to Sierra Leone and organise youth empowerment conferences, as well as financially support youth-designed community development projects. Our next trip is in August.

I also won a fellowship to study Public Policy and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton this summer. I plan to go to grad school to pursue a concurrent degree in law and masters in international development. From all the various experiences that I have had, I have decided on a career in the public service sector, internationally or locally in Sierra Leone.

The war in Sierra Leone had only just ended when Musa Henry

Kpaka joined UWCSEA in 2002. Driven by the diamond industry, it was a war largely ignored by the west, despite its notorious conscrip-tion of child soldiers and the muti-lations practiced by the rebel army. During his time in Singapore Musa talked to groups of students, raising awareness about the impact of war on young people and the ways they could help. He helped plan the fi rst Initiative for Peace conference here and joined the pioneering Kenya Gap Year team in 2004/2005, launching community service projects in the Rift Valley that are still fl ourishing. Now at Whitman College in the United States, Musa won a Davis Projects for Peace award last sum-mer and returned home to Sierra Leone to engage young people in community-building projects and give them hope. He spoke to us about his experience of service and his own ambitions.

Musa Henry Kpaka UWCSEA 2002-2004

Participants at the National Youth Empowerment workshop in Sierra Leone

Workshop in progress

Former Student Wins “Projects for Peace” Award; Starts Youth Program in Sierra Leone Linda De Flavis

Teacher and University Counsellor

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Awards Day took place in April, attended by students of Grade 9, 10, 11 and 12. The Grade 12 students were easy to pick out as it was the fi nal day of a week of themed dress days, and some of the outfi ts were very interesting, to say the least!

Below is a list of the award recipients:

Awards Day 2008!

English Award Maia Jenkins Asian Languages Award Medha Krishna Asian Languages Award Rin Ushiyama European Languages Award - French Saskia Baer European Languages Award - German A1 Saskia Baer European Languages Award - Spanish Rahul Advani Bilingual Award A1/A2 Marius Johansen Bilingual Award A1/B Abiy Fekadu Tasissa Biology Award Holly Bigger The Shaun Hanley Award for Chemistry Nadia Utami Sugiarto Physics Award Kim Do YoungDesign and Technology Award Viraj Kalyani Geography Award Harriet Corbett History Award Harris Gozali Economics Award Henry Heng-Li Chong Business and Management Award Nikita More Philosophy Award Mei An Gan Psychology Award Nikita More Mathematics Award Abiy Fekadu Tasissa David Watson Prize for Performing Arts Sean Montgomery Outstanding Technical Support for the Performing Arts Craig Hood Diana Greenwood Prize for Senior Drama Nalini Vasudevan Lance Huet Prize for Art Natasha Howitt Gavin Waddell Prize for Art Augusta Carpenter Robert Lutton Creative Writing Prize (Upper School) Luke Burns Publications Prize – Footprints Jocelyn Ames Percussionist of the Year Rin Ushiyama Brass Player of the Year Daiki Kuboyama Vocalist of the Year Emma Price Outstanding Performance/Commitment to College Music Lieve Hendren Grade 12 academic attainment award Kim Do Young Outstanding Contribution to NYAA Mika Pejovic Student Initiative Award – Enigma Raghav MathurService Award Katie Millichamp Service Award Harriet Corbett Contribution to Upper School Boarding Life Senani Mamba The CIS International Student Award Senani Mamba Exemplary Effort Award Abiy Fekadu TasissaExemplary Effort Award Adeel ZaidiExemplary Effort Award Marie-Liesse CapelleExemplary Effort Award Ira MartopulloOutstanding Contribution Award Sarah VancraeyenestOutstanding Contribution Award Taylor DuheOutstanding Contribution Award Ken Kuo KourOutstanding Contribution Award Kevin Mark PonniahOutstanding Contribution Award Gillian De Boer

Grade 12

The Mark Ironside award, in honour of alumnus Mark Ironside (Grade 10, 1976), is awarded for highest academic achievement by a Grade 10 (GCSE) student each year. This year it was awarded to Anuran Makur.

AWARDS

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ALUMNI PROFILE

Making people aware of the importance of English language competence for

access to opportunities in the labour mar-ket and creating a new generation of better qualifi ed teachers to improve and foster the learning and teaching of English in Chilean schools are just two of the objectives of the English Opens Doors programme of the Chilean Ministry of Education (www.ingles.mineduc.cl), for which Carmen Oria is the International Relations Offi cer. When the project began in 2003 with the ambi-tious goal of achieving English fl uency for all Chileans within one generation, there were 500 undergraduates studying to become teachers of English. This has risen to 13,000 in 2007! To strengthen their early training as EFL teachers, Chil-ean President Michelle Bachelet launched the Semester Abroad scholarships which are run by the English Opens Doors pro-gramme. Carmen’s responsibilities in this particular initiative include the fostering of partnerships between Chilean universities and educational institutions in English-speaking countries worldwide. She says that “Singapore is most certainly on my radar” and plans are already underway to touch base with Singapore´s university sector.

Her job has involved a signifi cant amount of travelling both within and outside of Chile. In 2006, Carmen went to Montreal, Canada to represent the English Opens Doors programme at NAFSA, an associa-tion of international educators promoting international education and professional development opportunities, as well as to Sao Paulo for the British Council Policy Forum, to speak about the strategies and projects implemented by the English Opens Doors programme.

Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, in a family which hails from the Basque region of Spain, Carmen speaks fl uent Spanish, English and the Filipino dialect Tagalog. She says that as children, she and her siblings had always tried out other people’s accents and dialects for fun and she developed a habit of listening very carefully to people when they speak. This certainly helped to defi ne her future career in interpreting and translating as well as

her role in Chile’s English language educa-tion programme.

Carmen spent four years at UWCSEA in the early 1970s when her father was as-signed by his US-based company to open an offi ce in Singapore. There, she says, she was able to gain exposure to a further wide range of cultures, languages and accents of other students from all over the world, and she has managed to keep in touch over the years with some of the friends she made during that time. When asked if she still has memories of the College and Singa-pore, Carmen says that her fondest ones include bumping into Lord Mountbatten, who presided over the UWC movement at that time, on the campus one day; sitting next to John Boughton in Geography class where they didn’t often pay the strictest attention; and having lunch by the air-con fountain. She says she also recalls an unforgettable weekend excursion to the Malaysian jungle, and remembers enjoying the “unbeatable” Singapore cuisine at the makan stalls and the Satay Club.

Leaving Singapore in 1975, Carmen fi rst moved to Sevilla, Spain to begin her fur-ther studies, and then went on to Goucher College in Baltimore, USA in 1977. A year after graduating with a BA in Communica-tions, she was sent to Buenos Aires by her fi rst employer to carry out some customer training in the Spanish language. By that time, she had already met her husband, a native of Chile. They married in 1980 and moved from the US to Santiago. She has lived in Chile for the most part since that year, with her husband and their four children. Chile is now her home and she feels very strongly for it. Her father teases her about being “the one-woman Chilean Tourist Board.”

Interpreter and International Relations Offi cer, Chilean Ministry of Education

Carmen Oria UWCSEA 1971 - 1975

Carmen (far right) with fi rst batch of scholarship winners (2006) in front of Chile´s seat of government, La Moneda Palace

“Also you realise that people are basically the same wherever you go; the same fears, needs, challenges and goals.”

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Prior to her work with the Chilean Ministry of Education, Carmen worked as a free-lance interpreter. She has spoken Spanish all her life, while English was the language of all her education in the Philippines, the United States where she lived for a year, and Singapore. She is able to switch fl uidly between the two languages and says that she is never really aware of which one she is thinking in!

In 1998, Carmen became involved in the PBS documentary series A Force More Powerful, narrated by British actor Ben Kingsley, where she translated interviews with Chilean members of Congress, former government ministers and journalists, including an interview with the former Chilean Senator Sergio Bitar. Subsequently, she landed a job as a Spanish-English interpreter with BBC camera crews in Chile, interpreting content for television newscasts.

Her role as Spanish-English interpreter was, she says, a “pure adrenaline rush” because of the need for great accuracy, speed and nuance at all times, and the great importance of the words that she was interpreting. Carmen has a passionate interest in people, and loves to mingle and engage in conversations, which she feels is a major trait to have in order to be an effective interpreter or translator. She has met, worked with and interpreted for a number of very prominent and fascinating individuals and public fi gures such as Chil-ean judge Juan Guzman who was heavily involved in investigations regarding human rights violations, BBC legend John Simpson and Roy Disney, Walt Disney´s nephew who was a long-time senior executive for the Walt Disney Company. In 2000, even though she opposed the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet, she interpreted in a true and objective way the opinions expressed by his younger sister, Maria Teresa Pinochet in her defence of the Gen-eral, in a BBC interview while the General was under house arrest in England.

Carmen (right) with President Bachelet of Chile, at launch of the Semester Abroad scholarships for future English teachers

It was a few years later, in 2003, that a chance re-encounter with Sergio Bitar, who had since become Chile’s Minister of Education, led Carmen to her current position with the English Opens Doors programme. Carmen feels that with her current position, she is ‘connecting the dots’ of her career path.

Her international background and experi-ence have made her ideally suited to the positions she has held throughout her working life. She says, “Being exposed to a variety of cultures, customs and languages most defi nitely allows me to be more open and receptive professionally, and really helps when meeting with foreign delega-tions.” She feels that living on different continents, among different cultures results in “tending to be highly adaptable, more tolerant and open-minded about other cultures. Also you realise that people are basically the same wherever you go; the same fears, needs, challenges and goals.”

As part of her work for the Chilean Edu-cation Ministry´s English Opens Doors programme, Carmen has provided sup-port for the National Volunteer Centre which recruits volunteers from around the world to teach English in Chilean public schools while living with host families, in programmes ranging from 10 weeks to 8 months. Information about the programme may be found at www.centrodevolun-tarios.cl.

Carmen (far right) at British Council Policy Forum, Sao Paulo, Brazil

In keeping with her current role promot-ing the English language in Chile, Carmen has always spoken English at home to her daughter and three sons to ensure that they are fully bilingual and able to engage with other people and cultures world-wide. Her eldest son is starting his fi rst year at university to pursue a degree in Literature and has plans to spend time abroad as an exchange student. Carmen proudly points out that “his English-language skills allow him to read Auster, Vonnegut, Conrad, Faulkner, Capote, Orwell and others with the same ease with which he devours Cer-vantes, García Márquez, Cortázar, Vargas Llosa and Borges.”

Carmen may be reached through the UWCSEA alumni website and invites old friends to get in touch, as well as colleagues in the same fi eld to “combine synergies!”

Carmen at UWCSEA 1975

By Brenda Whately

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BeluntuHISTORY

When Brian Green was fi rst interviewed for a teaching position

at UWCSEA by then Head of College, Meurig Owen in 1971, a large part of the interview discussion centred around his experience in outdoor pursuits. The College planned from the beginning, to establish an offsite facility that would combine outdoor pursuits with academic study in an environment separate from the College, primarily to give students access to and understanding of a different and less developed environment than that of Singapore. In 1971 the search began for ‘Beluntu.’

There were many people instrumental in the success of Beluntu, along with Brian. George Thompson, an academic and representative of the British Army was a strong supporter of the project, as was Robert Lutton, who was one of the prime movers for the new international school which was fi rst called SIS and then UWCSEA. Di Greenwood, Tim Agerbak and countless other teachers and students provided support as well.

The British Army, although reduced in size, was still present in Singapore in 1971. The Commanding Offi cer of the ‘Jungle Wing’ offered the use of a helicopter to aid in the search for an appropriate site. The manager of a silica mining company in Johor, who Brian got to know, provided a truck and driver. Forays were conducted over several weekends by helicopter and boat from Changi. Boarders and day students were included in the forays. Early on, the Jungle Wing allocated a three man team to provide courses on jungle survival, and Brian along with John David and two senior students were the fi rst to take fi ve days of training in the forest. “Mr Green was very much the bush-whacking adventurer, in and out of landrovers and RAF helicopters with a ‘parang’ ever close at hand,” remembers Michael Fong, a student at UWCSEA a couple of years later (1974 to 1980).

After the first two chosen sites were not approved, although a temporary longhouse was built over several visits on the second one, the British Army again

provided a helicopter to aid in identifi cation of a third. The site, which was to become Beluntu, was soon found and approval was received. Brian met again with the British Army and as they were experienced in building in the jungle, they offered to provide a plan for the basic facilities needed; dorms, a room to serve as dining room and classroom, water supply, electricity and sewage, etc. When the plan was delivered, Brian says he was taken aback by its thoroughness, right down

to the number of nails that would be required for the buildings.

After four years of negotiation and planning, construction on the U-shaped facility was begun in June 1975. The Royal Engineers of the British Forces began clearing and construction, and between September and December of that year, under the

“Beluntu will always have a special place in my heart. A vivid way for a teenager to experience nature with all the

excitement it has to offer. Shaky bus rides to get there, Boney M sounding on the radio... mos-quito bites, daraprim to keep away malaria.... open air lab, analysing life around us, fi rst real scientifi c work with the

scent of an expedition.... boat trips through the unique at-

mosphere of the mangroves... silence except for birds sing-

ing.... evenings with gas burn-ers which I can still smell today and singing to a guitar around

the fi re.... Hearts touching each other in fi rst tender bonds....

which would remain for the next

30 years....”Regina Huber

(UWCSEA 1974-1980)

Remembering

By Brenda Whately

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supervision of Ray Crotti, staff and senior students made up working parties every weekend.

The site was originally called the Johor Project, became the Johor Site, the Johor Centre, and fi nally Beluntu, named after Sungei Beluntu, the river immediately south of the site.

In the early 1970s, large tracts of land in Malaysia were planted with oil palms. In the early days when they went by road, UWCSEA students would help with the planting and stay in the local longhouses.

Soon after the facility was completed, a visiting Canadian banker, Mr Page Wadsworth asked Brian what he’d like to add next if he could. The answer was a general purpose laboratory. Funds were provided and the Page Wadsworth Laboratory was built. Equipment was procured with additional funding from two

other visitors, Antonin Besse of Belgium and Dagfi nn Paust of Norway.

The fi rst wardens hired to live at the site were Bob and Annie Smith who had a background in outdoor pursuits and biology. Academic weekends began in January 1976. T h e f i r s t intensive study w e e k e n d s were lead by the Eng l i sh a n d M a t h s departments.

Groups of 20 students at a time came out for weekend v i s i t s . They travelled by bus, boat, land rover and foot. In addition to

the wide range of weekend programmes, a week at Beluntu became an integral part of the curriculum for Grades 7 and 9. Bo Fussing was a second year (Grade 7) student in 1978 and he remembers “the sheer remoteness of the place, the canoeing, orienteering and activities on the beach.” He says, “It was all a huge adventure for us kids and a truly amazing experience.”

Katharine Dyne, who was at UWCSEA in Years 6 and 7, 1977 to 1979, says her main memories of Beluntu are of the Biology weekends there. “We had perhaps two hours of lessons and then the rest of the time was spent learning to sail toppers, beach walking and jungle walking with teacher, Dick Hutchings.” Dick was part of the team that set up the biology programme between 1977 and 1981. Just before he passed away last year, he mentioned in an email that “Beluntu was a super place where we often used to take the biologists and environmental scientists. You should have heard the crickets at dusk. I will never forget it. Magic …”

Beluntu went from strength to strength. Senior Biology students were involved in very exciting and innovative work on site. There were drama and language weekends, academic study weeks, outdoor activities, IB projects, a biosphere set up in the sea and students interacted with nearby villagers for local information. Some weekends the site was made available for staff R&R!

The facility ran for about 10 years. Brian left Singapore in 1982, returning in 1984 to fi nd that it had been closed at the request of the Malaysian government. It was a great disappointment to him and the entire College when it closed. Then teacher, John Burgess, brought the name sign back from the site, and Brian has kept it to this day at his home in Australia.

Continued on next page

Above top: Teachers Mary Kirwin and Lesley Ann Sandbach preparing roof Previous page (L to R): Brian Green, AC Gap Year student, John David, student, Naomi Hoare

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Please send your history article suggestions for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

UWCSEA HISTORY

Michael Fong revisited the site on his motorcycle years later. He says, “True to the Beluntu principles of ‘leave nothing but your footprints,’ Beluntu had been consumed by the jungle; the huts and the

bio-lab had all collapsed and the trees had started to work their way back to the beach.”

In the years since, Beluntu has been replaced with several separate offsite programmes for outdoor pursuits and academic study. Beluntu however, has never been forgotten.

If you have memories of Beluntu that you’d care to share, please send them to us at alumni@uwcsea.edu.sg or add them to the blog in the History section of the site.

“Beluntu was a unique place and all of us who witnessed its

demise were very saddened because the Centre was looking in fantastic shape and was being

used to capacity most of the year. Beluntu was very special

and I look back with great fond-ness on all the wonderful times

we shared there.”John Burgess

Teacher

Above top: Lord Mountbatten (centre) arriving by helicopter/Brian Green (far left)Above centre: Beluntu’s U-shaped facility looking out to the seaAbove bottom: Students working?Left top: Staff and students by the beach Left bottom: Beluntu buildings

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THE ALUMNI WEBSITE

Defi nitions

Class Year“Class Year” is defi ned as the year that you would have completed the fi nal year of high school (Year 7, Grade 12, second year of A-levels or IB), whether you were in UWCSEA at that time or not. This helps us to link alumni who attended classes together, regardless of when they each arrived and left.

Registered membersUWCSEA alumni who have already registered as members of the UWCSEA alumni website. Members are able to search for and send messages to other members.

Non-membersUWCSEA alumni whom the alumni team has contact information for, but who have not yet registered with the website. You may contact us at alumni@uwcsea.edu.sg if you would like us to help you reconnect with them.

Lost membersA subset of the non-member list. We have no contact information for these alumni. If you are in touch with any of the ‘lost’ members, do send us their contact via the lost member link or by email.

PrivacyOnly other registered members can view your profi le. The only information which can be seen by non-members is your name, class year and location if you have not unchecked the boxes beside the entry fi elds. This information appears in the class year lists. All other information is private and available only to other registered members. Information in many fi elds can be hidden even from other registered members by unchecking the box beside the fi eld in the ‘Edit my profi le’ section.

Message preferences‘My Preferences’ allows you to subscribe to email alerts to be sent to your email inbox. By default, all message preferences are checked. This allows you to be alerted when new members register within your class group; when you are sent a connection invite and when other members send you messages, etc.

To manually choose your preferences, once you are signed in, click on ‘My Preferences’ on the right side of the screen. Then simply uncheck the boxes as desired. To save changes, click ‘Save my settings.’

Messaging membersAfter you have performed a search of the member you want to message, click on ‘Message member’ which appears to the right of the name. You will then see the message editor. Enter the subject and text and click ‘Send Now’ when you are satisfi ed with your message.

Please send any questions you may have about the site to : alumni@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Alumni website’s ‘My Preferences’ screen

Alumni website’s message editor screen

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Having taken over the UWCSEA Gap Year initiative in June 2007 I am re-

ally excited at the prospects that UWCSEA can offer its graduating students. Both as a teacher and as the parent of a daughter who spent a Gap Year in France and Cam-bodia I can honestly say that Gap Year can offer life-changing opportunities.

In the coming years, UWCSEA aims to become a leader in the fi eld of Gap Year volunteer programmes abroad for our grad-uating IB students. In order to achieve this, we are now looking at ways of improving pre-placement training and expanding the number of opportunities available. Our vision has already inspired a partner-ship with the British Council, setting up a unique, affordable and accredited Teach-ing English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certifi cation programme. This year, 27 of our IB students completed the course.

UWCSEA has now made South East Asia the focus of the Gap Year. This year our gap year volunteers have been working with Bridges Across Borders in Cambodia and Thailand (www.babsea.org). BABSEA has a number of programmes which Gap Year students assist in supporting; from child protection and education, to com-munity development, working with HIV/AIDS organisations and a number of other programmes and projects devoted to hu-man rights issues.

In 2008, we sent our UWCSEA Gap Year students to the BABSEA offi ces in Chiang Mai, Thailand and Phnom Penh, Cambodia where they were able to work with the

Taking the Gap Year Option (3YO) at UWCSEAKevin Morley

Programme Coordinator

BAB Community Legal Education Program, while also providing English teaching. Our students have taught a variety of programmes in a variety of settings: slum children, monks, women’s groups, rural agricultural workers, village children, uni-versity undergraduates and professors. This Gap Year programme is now extending to Vientiane Laos, and this is set to begin in August 2009. We have found that these placements, with a specifi c focus on law,

GAP YEAR

Some examples of UWCSEA Gap Year projects are:Bali IndonesiaTeaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and community development at an NGO run children’s home.Aceh IndonesiaTEFL and community development at a local government school and charitable foun-dation for tsunami relief.Bangkok, ThailandTEFL and classroom assistants at an NGO-run children’s home and AIDS hospice.Tioman Island, MalaysiaTEFL and working on ecology conservation projects at a local government school and ecological trust.Cebu City, PhilippinesTEFL, scholarship and community development at an NGO-run communication edu-cation facility.

In the years to come we hope that another important group, our UWCSEA alumni, will also be able to support and contribute to these programmes in a variety of differ-ent ways. My own contacts with former students and many of the individual alumni profi les on the alumni website, suggest that there is a strong desire and commitment to continuing to participate in social service after leaving UWCSEA and after graduating from university.

If you are interested in assisting or participating in the Gap Year programme at UWC-SEA, please contact Kevin Morley at kmo@uwcsea.edu.sg and/or Brenda Whately at brenda@uwcsea.edu.sg.

are quite attractive to both students and parents alike. In addition, by expending links to existing College initiatives such as The Tsunami Education Fund, Global Concerns and the parent group PACE, we hope to increase the number of pro-grammes and regional placements, each one offering fantastic opportunities to our students to work with a variety of NGOs and College-related organisations for up to eight months.

Opportunities for alumni

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To write about my experience in Cambo-dia which ended almost exactly a year

ago, is a very surreal experience. It seems very long ago, and just like yesterday at the same time. When I recount the experience to people now, they often gush about how exotic my life has been, how strange. At the time, it felt diffi cult and tiring along with fun, but not ‘exotic’ at all.

Because I had chosen to go to Melbourne for university, it meant I had the inconve-nient blessing of nine months to fi ll between the end of school and the start of my new life in Australia. Having a strong family connection to Africa through my mother’s work there as a journalist, when I heard of the option to go to Kenya to live for that interim period, I jumped at the chance, and didn’t hesitate to sign up for the selec-tion process. Weeks later I received a letter saying that I wouldn’t be going to Kenya (sudden disappointment) but that I had been chosen for a small team to pioneer a volunteer programme in Cambodia (ap-prehensive confusion). I was a part of a team of four students, of which I was the only non-National Committee Student; the only one who hadn’t lived in the boarding house away from home; the baby. I didn’t know them like they knew each other, but I was confi dent that we would all end up best friends, I believe my exact words were “a family”.

That wasn’t how it ended up working out, thankfully. We fi gured out slowly through our English Teacher Training, that working together probably wasn’t going to be as

easy as we thought. I also found during my time observing in the Japanese school classrooms and the UWCSEA lower school classrooms, that working with children wasn’t going to be easy either. But those hours planted a seed of fascination at the way children learn; how it shapes their identity. That fascination grew during my time in Cambodia, and is shaping my future every day.

On day one in Cambodia I was confronted with my fi rst choice. At this point we still had Mr. Morley there to present us with options, to be a mediator for discussions and a referee for the battles between all of our incredibly strong personalities. Did I want to work at Cambodia’s Dump Children’s Centre (CDCC), a centre with younger children with far less English capabilities, or Children’s Centre for Happiness (CCH), with fewer children who were older, with quite advanced English). On my fi rst visit to CDCC, we wit-nessed what was to become a fairly routine display of dancing and singing when visitors turned up. I was delighted when a small girl threw herself into my arms and wanted to hug while we watched the beautiful dis-play. My friend, JC, who had been living in Cambodia, and working at CDCC for the previous year, whispered to me “That’s Sok Chey*. Be careful, she has scabies.” I had the sudden urge to throw Sok Chey off me, and to clutch her tightly to protect her at the same time.

I ended up working full time at CDCC, and I overcame both of these feelings in the six months I spent there. I learnt to tell Sok Chey that it wasn’t okay to climb all over me; I learnt that if I didn’t wash my hands, I could come down with many things, not just scabies; and I learnt to work alongside the very diligent staff of CDCC to keep the children healthy, for everyone’s sake. I never

Jen Mackie UWCSEA 2001-2006

ended up catching scabies, or even lice, but I did get typhoid, a bad ear infection, numerous coughs, and a perpetual tummy bug, all of which were to be expected from living in a developing country. There are plenty of other things that I didn’t expect that all came along with living in a place like Cambodia, with such a horrifying re-cent history, corrupt dealings and rampant poverty. I didn’t expect to see people shoot-ing up heroin in the street where I was work-ing, or in response, the well established harm reduction NGO’s. I didn’t expect to be able to go to meetings of communities who were being illegally evicted from their homes with no hope of proper protection or

compensation, nor to work alongside the incredible people from Cambodia and elsewhere, who were working night and day to help them. I didn’t expect to have to keep a special eye on one of our students who was a cheeky young girl recovering from major heart surgery. She would

often pretend she was feeling ill if she didn’t want to take part in class activities, but occasionally when we were playing fun games or doing dances, we would have to watch her to make sure she didn’t exceed her limitations just because she wanted to join in the fun.

It is diffi cult to sum up what I went through in Cambodia in a few hundred words. It is hard to articulate, when I have so much to say about how gruelling and often depress-ing it was, that I would recommend going on this gap programme without the slightest hesitation. I would do it all again given half the chance. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t go about most things entirely differently. I probably would. I know that every day I am being changed and shaped by what I do, who I meet and where I go. What I did, who I met and where I went in my Gap Year will continue to shape me. That, I will always treasure.

UWCSEA alumna recounts her Gap Year experience

(*Name changed)

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TRAVEL

If you seek a symbol with substance, look no further than Stari Most. The “Old

Bridge” of Mostar in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was built by Ottoman Turkish authorities in the 16th century, in the reign of Suleyman the Magnifi cent. For hundreds of years after, its graceful arch, made of local Tenelija stone, joined the twin halves of Mostar, split by the fast-fl owing Neretva River.

First under Ottoman rule, then in independent Yugoslavia, Stari Most – and Mostar itself – came to symbolize successful coexistence among diverse ethnic groups. That coexistence was shattered when the Yugoslav union collapsed in chaos in 1992. The bridge itself collapsed, after months of shelling, in November 1993. For years after, only a fragile footbridge, first of wooden planks and then of metal sheeting, linked the Tara and Helebija towers on either side of the river.

Today, astonishingly, Stari Most has been restored to its former glory. Working with stone from the original quarry, a team of architects and engineers meticulously recreated the design techniques of its Ottoman builders. Reconstruction took almost as long as the original construction, but in 2004, this UNESCO World Heritage Site was once again opened to foot traffi c. Reconstruction of Mostar as a whole will take another generation, if not more. The city was perhaps the most ferociously

contested site in the entire Bosnian confl ict – even besieged Sarajevo might not compare. A documentary DVD, “War in Mostar,” on sale at local souvenir shops, makes clear that by the time of the ceasefi re, much of Mostar resembled some German cities at the end of World War Two. In particular, the predominantly Muslim canton of eastern Mostar was a shelled-out ruin. The irony is that most of the fi ghting over Mostar occurred between two forces that had previously been allies. When Yugoslavia dissolved and war spread to Bosnia in 1992, it was the territory’s Serbs – backed by the authorities in Belgrade, who had laid claim to most of the arms and materiel of the former national army – who quickly gained the upper hand. Croats and Bosnian Muslims banded together to resist them. A cemetery near the Rondo roundabout in Mostar today holds Muslim victims of this phase of the confl ict. It is surreal to walk along row after row of headstones, with “1992” listed as the date of death on every one.

Mostar, damaged by Serb shelling, held out until the siege was lifted

in late 1992. But only a few months later, in May 1993, the Croats and Muslims had their own falling out, and fi ghting broke out anew.

The more powerful Croats were aided by access to supply lines from the long Dalmatian coast, which allowed them to circumvent the international arms embargo on all the warring parties. Amidst scenes of looting, rape, and murder, they evicted thousands of Muslims from the western, predominantly Croat side of the city, and forced them across the Neretva to the eastern bank. They then pummelled the Muslim quarter for fully two years, with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine-guns.

Adam JonesUWCSEA 1979-1981

Adam Jones attended UWCSEA between 1979 and 1981 as a Canadian National Committee scholar.

He is currently Associate Professor of political science at the University of British Columbia

Okanagan, and author or editor of a dozen books published or in press, most recently ‘Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction’ (Routledge, 2006).

Adam traveled to Bosnia and Herzegovina last year and provides this account of his visit:

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Outnumbered and outgunned, the Muslim population nonetheless offered staunch resistance. They even managed to hold on to a signifi cant stretch of territory on the west bank of the river, the edge of which became the hotly-contested frontline in the battle.

This was urban warfare of a kind rarely seen in recent decades: perhaps only Beirut, Mogadishu, and Grozny compare. Today, more than a decade after the conflict ended, a stroll along Mostar’s main boulevard, Hrvatskih Branitelja – the former frontline – is a shocking and sobering experience. Many buildings are nothing but empty shells, strewn with rubble and overgrown with weeds, their façades so peppered with bullets and shrapnel that barely a square metre remains intact. Here and elsewhere in the city, “DANGEROUS RUIN” signs warn against entering the premises, or parking near them.

Yet alongside the ruins, new structures are proliferating. The din of construction now drowns out “Mostar’s heartbeat,” the hammering of coppersmiths in the cobbled alleys of the old town – one of whom, with wicked insouciance, etches traditional designs into the spent casings of artillery shells left over from the confl ict.

Many other buildings, though still pocked by exploded munitions, are again occupied and functioning. And away from the frontline in what is now an exclusively Croat zone, one could be forgiven for thinking the war never happened. Leafy streets offer shade for the dedicated denizens of cafes, sipping a beer or mineral water away from the midsummer heat. Stylish boutiques do a thriving trade: a favourite T-shirt for willowy young women is “Don’t see fashion, BE fashion.”

In the Ottoman old town, and most of the Muslim neighbourhoods on the east bank of the Neretva, reconstruction has also erased most of the evidence of the fi ghting. The Karadjozbeg mosque, which dates from 1557, is radiant in the bright summer sun. A stark black-and-white photo at its main entrance depicts the fate it suffered during the war: its minaret decapitated, and its dome perforated by heavy shells. As for the narrow, winding streets of the old town, their cobblestones positively gleam, buffed by the footfalls of the thousands of tourists who now visit Mostar annually.

This return to near-normalcy conceals lingering scars, however. What was once a demographic patchwork is now rigidly divided: Croats to the west, Muslims to the east. For Mostar residents, crossing the boundary to shop no longer means running the risk of physical attack; but neither are they likely to be shopping for real estate. Duplication rather than integration of services is the norm. There are two bus stations, one for Muslims, one for Croats.

And at the stately Grammar School, built during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, different fl oors are devoted to instruction in the Croat or Bosnian languages. There is even a kind of segregation on the alcohol front. On the Croat side, the tipple of choice is Karlovacko pilsener, brewed across the border in Croatia. But just try to fi nd a bottle on the Muslim side of town, where Sarajevsko – brewed in the Muslim-dominated capital – is ubiquitous, emblazoned on the umbrella of every beer garden I saw.

If the scars are still relatively fresh, however, the progress in the last decade has been impressive. Supervised by European troops and political advisors, Croats and Muslims are now united in the Muslim-Croat Federation, one of the two “entities” – the other is the Serb Republic – that constitute the independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is likely that by the time Mostar’s youth reach adulthood, the country will have joined the European Union. Perhaps the rise of a pan-European identity will have greater success in damping down rivalries, and encouraging communal mingling, than its pan-Yugoslav forebear did. Regardless, Mostar’s complex, sometimes violent, always fascinating heritage means that the city will remain a must-see for the Balkans traveller.

Adam may be reached through

the alumni website.

Please send your travel article suggestions for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Adam Jones

Mostar lies about 2 ½ hours by bus or train from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and about the same by bus or car from Dubrovnik, Croatia’s crown jewel on the Adriatic coast. It’s a viable overnight trip from either of these more heavily-traffi cked destinations. Sarajevo is served by a range of European airlines, including British Airways, Alitalia, and Lufthansa. Dubrovnik is a popular port of call for ferries and cruiseships, as well as charter fl ights and budget airlines.

Mostar is relatively small (about 95,000 residents) and geographically concentrated; all areas of interest are easily negotiated on foot.

Every summer in Mostar, a “cooperative” of male divers, based in the Tara tower, solicits cash from tourists to plummet the 20-plus metres from the Stari Most arch into the frigid Neretva River. But they take their sweet time about it – teasing the crowd for half an hour or more, until a critical mass of contributions is collected and they fi nally take the plunge. A diving competition is held in July, attracting competitors from throughout the region.

Daytrips from Mostar include the gorgeous Ottoman-era hill-town of Pocitelj, about 40 minutes away on the coast road; and Herceg Stjepan Fortress, half an hour away, which looms impressively on its stony Herzegovinan hilltop, offering sweeping valley views. The fortress site dates back to Illyrian times, the present construction to the Middle Ages.

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After reading the previous travel article, you may be interested to note that there is a new UWC located in Mostar. Opened in 2006, it offers a new and positive model to actively counteract a decade of ethni-cally segregated education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where schools teach three different national curricula (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian). UWC Mostar is the fi rst UWC with the explicit aim of contribut-ing to the reconstruction of a post-confl ict society from within.

It is also the fi rst UWC to be housed within an existing national school. The Mostar Gymnasium teaches two curricula sepa-rately for Croat and Bosniak students, as is the case in many so called ‘two schools under one roof’ which is a post-war phe-nomenon in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But on the Gymnasium’s top fl oor, UWC Mostar offers a single curriculum for all its students – drawn from all national groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as from overseas – who all live, study and work together. UWC Mostar students live in three residences in different parts of the city, with students of different nation-alities sharing rooms to gain the greatest possible exposure to other cultures and ideas. Teachers from across Bosnia and Herzegovina are also exposed to the UWC philosophy through the UWC-IB Initiative’s support for the professional development of teachers in local schools. (Reprinted from UWC Inspire)

TRAVEL

Update to Bicycling through Asia by Tim Goulding (December 2007 issue)

A UWC in Mostar

Our Bicycling through Asia article in the December 2007 OneºNorth left myself and my partner, Stephanie, pedalling somewhere in southern China towards the end of our 12 month cycling adventure. We are pleased to announce our arrival back home in Australia. We fi nished up riding over 14,000 km, and in our fi nal two months we rode out of China, into Laos, then into Thailand, then into Laos again, then into Thailand again...and then fl ew home! And it was all good, apart from Steph being admitted to hospital for kidney stones in Thailand.

I am now back at university, studying to become a high school history teacher (thanks, Dr Underwood), and Steph is back working as a lawyer, keeping me in the manner to which I am accustomed.

It was so good to be back in Asia last year, so when I graduate we hope that I can fi nd a job teaching somewhere over there. Malaysia is looking very appealing.

Simply go to http://alumni.uwcsea.edu.sg and click ‘Register’ to become a member. Registering with the alumni website

allows you to maintain your own profi le page, search for and contact other alumni, post photos and notes, stay updated

regarding UWCSEA alumni and College news and events, etc. So go ahead and register today!

http://alumni.uwcsea.edu.sg

Have you registered with the UWCSEA alumni website yet?

Akihiko Hoshide, Class of 1987

Aki Hoshide, astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), fl ew to the International Space Station (ISS) on 31 May 2008, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. He is a Mission Specialist on the crew of NASA mission STS-124, which is delivering and attaching ISS components including the Pressurized Module and the Robotic Arm of the Japanese Experiment Module ‘Kibo’ (meaning ‘hope’ in Japanese). The Kibo laboratory will enhance the research capabilities of the space station and will be the largest habitable module on the space station.

(Thanks to JAXA)

Please watch for an update from Aki regarding the mission in the next issue of the alumni magazine, December 2008.

Photo credit: NASA

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RECENT REUNIONS

2007 December Alumni Drop-in, UWCSEA An informal alumni drop-in was held on campus in mid-December mainly for alumni back from university and in Singapore for the holidays, as well as those living here once more. Watch the alumni website for another one in December. We will be looking for your suggestions regarding timing and venue in order to accommodate more returning alumni!

London Alumni Get-Together, February 2008

The second annual London alumni get-together, attracted a great turn-out again this year! Former students

and staff in the area gathered to mingle and reconnect. Most class

years were represented. Stay tuned for another one next year.

Other alumni get-togethersMelbourne : November 2007 Hong Kong : January 2008

Watch out for more reunion photos in the next issue of OneºNorth. If you are organising alumni gatherings in your area, let us know at alumni@uwcsea.edu.sg.

London 2008

Above: London 2008

Above: December 2007

Photo courtesy of Lilian Lee

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CLASS NOTES

1974Giorgio Conti is now working in Udine, Italy after having spent almost 27 years overseas.

The photo (left) is of Giorgio and his wife, Christina, taken in the summer of 2007. The photo (right) is of Giorgio’s daughters: Elisabetta (19), left and Alessandra (14), right.

1975Andrew R. Dack I work in the oil and gas industry as a freelance project control manager. I am currently working in Ho Chi Minh, Viet-nam for a joint venture company involving three companies from the UK, Thailand and Vietnam.

Christi E. Hansen I am happily married to a wonderful man, Ed, live in Florida, US, and have two beautiful children, Kathryn (20) and Paul (18). Both are attending university here. I take ballet, do painting and share art with my husband who makes pottery. I am cur-rently fi nishing university studies myself. I enjoy my family, lots of outdoor activities in sunny Florida and count my blessings for having such a great life; the roots of which I gained in my early years while growing up in beautiful Singapore!

Christi with her family

Martin Truscott On leaving SIS in 1973 I returned to the UK, where I joined the Police Force. Pauline was involved in a serious road ac-cident after she left SIS in 1973 and after returning to the UK she spent many months in hospital recovering. Pauline and I live in Fareham, Hampshire, UK and after spend-ing 33 years as a police offi cer, I have now retired and work as a researcher. Pauline works in catering. Pauline and I both have siblings who went to SIS and whenever

we are together it is a guaranteed topic of conversation. A very happy time in all our lives. I am delighted to have made recent contact with my old housemaster, Tony Sharp and his wife Ann.

1976Kappei Morishita I continue to be a tennis freak. I exchange emails frequently with former UWCSEA teacher, Charles Engmann and Kim Ivey (1975) especially during the Grand Slam Tournaments. If you want to join the email chat, you are welcome. It is amazing that Charles in Ghana, Kim in Australia and Kappei in the US are watching the tennis game in TV and exchanging emails in real time.

Work-wise, I am now serving as a chief license offi cer of Blu-ray Disc Association and I am responsible for licensing activities of Blu-ray format and logo world-wide. So if you happen to see, purchase or play a BD movie disc or player, please remember that a UWCSEA alumnus is involved.

1979Miran SalgadoI graduated with a MBBS from the Uni-versity of Colombo, Sri Lanka (1985). I completed postgraduate studies in Internal Medicine in 1990 from the University of Colombo and left for further training in Neurology in the United States. In 1995, I completed my residency at SUNY Brook-lyn and a fellowship in Movement Disor-ders at Columbia University/Presbyterian Hospital and since then I have been prac-ticing Neurology in New York. Currently, I am the chairman of the Department of Neurosciences at New York Methodist Hospital. I married Yasmin in 1986. My son Sanjay (20) is a sophomore at Amherst College, US and my daughter hopes to attend Brearley School in Manhattan this fall, for high school. We have been living in Staten Island since 1991.

1981Stuart Cochlin I am the offi ce manager for a law fi rm in London. I have worked in London for 23 years. I am married to Melanie and live in Essex, UK. I have three step children and two step grandchildren.

1983Wei Meng Rose (Meng) After leaving UWCSEA, I studied archi-tecture at the Mackintosh School of Art, Glasgow University, UK. After obtaining my BA and Diploma I went to work in

London. I married in 1993 and have two children, 13 and 14 years old. I did a MBA in London and am now pursuing my inter-est in educational design for children.

1985Jan Wehebrink Post UWCSEA, after years of living in Lon-don, Milan, Budapest and Perth, Australia, I am still not quite ready to settle down. I recently dragged my ever patient wife Maribel and daughters to Washington, DC where I work at the International Finance Corporation, World Bank. I have been enjoying life in DC since the beginning of 2007 but missing the Australian beaches and surfi ng; not to mention being close to Singapore for a regular fi x of great food and some decent tropical weather.

1987Akihiko Hoshide, an astronaut with JAXA, has travelled to the International Space Sta-tion (ISS) on a space shuttle mission with NASA on 31 May 2008.

Marc SijmsI left UWCSEA in 1984 and went back to Holland. There I fi nished my schooling and started to work in a hotel. Over the years, I worked in several hotels and in the 1990s I joined the Holland America Line. A few years back, I moved to the middle of Hol-land and have been working here as an Ex-ecutive Chef. In 2007, my girlfriend and I b e c a m e proud parents of a beautiful daughter.

1988Romeo (Aswin) Ruanglertbutr Bangkok is my home base. I started a fashion company here in the early 90’s to launch Guess (USA) apparels and acces-sories stores in Thailand. Since then our company has expanded its portfolio to include Guess Baby and Kids, Marciano, Mango (Spain), Castro (Israel) and Pro-mod (France). We own and manage over 55 point of sales in Thailand covering all brands and employ about 350 people. My wife, Jasmine and I have two boys, Armaan (10) and Kavin (5).

Please send us your news for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

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CLASS NOTES

Please send us your news for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

1990Tracy Hubbell-Linden (Hubbell) I live in Texas, US where I have been since leaving Singapore in November 1985. I did not fi nish college as I found I did not have the patience for it. I have been mar-ried since 1997 and have two girls, Lieve and Annie. My husband Tim and I live on a small ranch about an hour north of Dallas. I love small-town life and being a SAHM (Stay-At-Home Mom). I enjoy keeping up with everyone (Class of 1990) via Facebook and look forward to our 20

year anniversary reunion in Singapore in 2010.

Tracy with family

1993Sarra WhicheloeFrom an Indian dance project for IB drama in 6th year to become a profes-sional classical Indian dancer - who would have guessed? Thanks to Mr McManus and Mr Evans I have had a good grounding in dra-ma. Our explorations with Peter Brooks’ “the empty space” con-tributed to my inter-est in performance.

In 1998, I went to India in search of a teacher and found Kalamandalam Sumathy who runs a dance school in a small town in Kerala. I have been training in India every year for a few months since. In 2001, I joined forces with Anusha Subramanyam to set up a dance company called Beeja, in London. Two years ago, I realised that it was time to branch out and work with other choreographers and since then I have been working as a solo artist. Stella Sub-biah choreographed a dance piece, on me, called “Bhole Nath”. It was created through improvisations based on a song in Tamil. This led to a series of mainstream perfor-mances in theatres in London and the UK. My vision is to tour United World Colleges in different parts of the world giving per-formances and theme-based workshops: connecting us through music and dance.

For information about Sarra’s performances and workshops, email her at dance@sarra.co.uk or visit www.sarra.co.uk.

1994Claudia HägerI recently got married, in fact, we had two weddings! The fi rst ceremony was held on 15 December 2007 in Melbourne, Austra-lia where I moved to two years ago.

The “main” wedding was held in Bali on 30 January 2008. This included a ceremony and a reception. Thirteen nationalities all met up to celebrate the occasion. Two of the bridesmaids were UWCSEA alumni: Natascha Häger (1991) and Christiana Dickson (Gibb) (1994). Other attendees were Peter Singh (1994) and Sunainika Saigal (1994).

Couple with bridesmaids and best man

1995Frances Mules is currently enjoying life in Kunming, China as a communications offi cer for the Center for Community De-velopment Studies which, among other things, has so far included several trips to the beautiful Yunnan countryside and the consumption of large quantities of very tasty local food. Prior to that, she spent fi ve years working in multicultural affairs as a policy offi cer with the Victorian State Government, Australia. She loves kayaking, mountain biking and the great outdoors and is hoping to move to Canada in 2009 to learn how to ski!”

1998Marlena Wu obtained a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2007 from Wright State Uni-versity. She is currently a staff counsellor at George Mason University in Virginia, United States.

2000Yuen Nirmala Greetings from the land down under! I graduated in 2000 after seven years in UWCSEA as a boarder.

I went on to study hospitality at the Inter-national College of Hotel Management, followed by an M. Sc in International Hotel and Tourism Management. After four years in the hospitality industry, in early 2007 a different path presented itself and I made a 180° move to the professional services fi rm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu as a part of the

Media and Communications team, as well as helping to build the fi rm’s profi le in Cor-porate Social Responsibility. Nine months later, I have been offered a promotion to look after Operations Management for National Marketing (Australia) alongside Deloitte’s chief marketing offi cer.

During my years at UWCSEA, I spent a great deal of time participating in team sports – basketball, volleyball and touch rugby. Seven years on; the belief in mate-ship, positive competitiveness and passion to succeed which UWCSEA instilled in me is still evident in how I approach my career and favourite past time - Dragon Boating. Dragon Boating State championships here we come!

Yeun Nirmala with her dragon boating team

2001Benjamin Brudevold-Newman currently lives large and works hard in Washington, D.C. Ben is watching the political process and presidential election unfold from the front lines through his work on a network television show on national politics. He tries not to take himself too seriously in his pursuit of a career in broadcast media and wishes desperately for more time to pour into digital fi lm-making.

Kasamawati Masmintrachaiyanara (Dew) has recently formed her own theatre group, “Underground Theatre“( http://www.un-dergroundtheatre.co.nr ) in Singapore. The fi rst showcase was a series of four short plays collectively titled, “Foreplay”, all

of which she wrote, three of which she directed and two of which she acted in. Three shows at the Telok Ayer Per-forming Arts Centre (TAPAC) in February and March 2008 were sold out. The

showcase received a good review on an online theatre review website, Fly-ing Inkpot ( http://www.inkpot.com/theatre/08reviews/0301,fore,kk.html ).

One of the plays featured was “Fat”, which has been performed four times in Singa-pore during the “Short & Sweet Theatre Festival 2007” at Nanyang Academy of

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CLASS NOTES

Please send us your news for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Fine Arts (NAFA) and also the Esplanade, “Celebrate Drama!” by the Singapore Drama Educator’s Association (SDEA), and recently for “Foreplay” by Underground Theatre. It was voted as the People’s Choice during the Short & Sweet Festival and has since been performed overseas in Melbourne and Sydney.

She received the Merit Award for script-writing by the Singapore National Broad-casting Authority (SBA) in 2001.

Dong Ok Jeon graduated from Yale Univer-sity in 2005. He is currently in his fi nal year at Vanderbilt University Law School. Dong Ok will be practicing law in Seoul, South Korea beginning September 2008.

Dong Ok with his family

2002Carina Bayerdoerffer has started to work as assistant to the CFO of a medium-sized family business which supplies spices to the food industry. She is currently heading the German UWC Alumni Association which helps German and other UWC alumni or friends living in Germany to stay in touch. In addi-tion, the German Network engages in fundraising ac-tivities for UWC scholarships, but also other projects like the set-up of the new UWC in Mostar. At the moment UWC Germany cooperates with the Dutch Committee to support the founding of the new college in Maastricht. Finally, there are plans to organise the fi rst short course in Germany in 2009. Anybody who happens to be in Germany and who wishes to be informed about what is happening or would like to join some activities such as the annual meeting every year in June is welcome to contact the German Network at network@uwc.de.

Elizabeth Holderness has been living in Kyiv, Ukraine for the last two years. She is teaching English, training for exam teach-ing, and in her free time is further establish-ing a social network amongst the younger, English-speaking international community. She is hoping to advance her education by

pursuing her M.A. (Language Documen-tation) with doctorate studies in the near future. Finally, she is marrying her college sweetheart in March 2009; any alum who knew her is welcome to attend!

2005Denila Deliallisi I was the only Albanian scholar graduating with the class of 2005. When I was fi nish-ing my studies , I got accepted into several colleges, and chose to attend Lafayette College in Easton, PA, USA. It is a small liberal arts school which has given me the opportunity to assume leadership positions and carry on the UWC spirit. I am studying Civil and Environmental Engineering with a minor in Architecture.

Here at Lafayette, I have been a loyal member of the Inter-national Student Asso-ciation. I have had the opportunity to travel to many states in the East Coast, mainly through school projects. Some of the leadership posi-tions I have assumed have been resident advisor, peer coun-selor, peer tutor, public relation offi cer and vice president of FAAP (Foundation for Awareness and Alleviation of Poverty), etc. However, I would have not been able to acquire these positions without the UW-CSEA training . I gained a lot of insight on world issues that many of my peers who attended state high schools didn’t get the chance to explore. I am looking forward to reunions in the East Coast area, as well as reunions with UWCSEA alumni in Sin-gapore. I have kept in touch with many from the Class of 2005, as well as some teachers and boarding house staff. I am proud to hear that UWCSEA ranks higher and higher in academic and social service achievements year after year.

Juliette DigonnetAfter graduating with Theater Arts (Higher) and Visual Arts, I was advised to do a foun-dation course at Wimbledon College of Arts and there I found my potential career “Design for Performance”. I am now in my second year at Central St. Martins College, thoroughly enjoying the course and work-ing very hard, designing wherever I can, including Ohio University where I recently had the chance to exchange. One day hopefully I’ll break into the professional world of Scenographers. I have not stopped painting and I am continuing my Grade 12

exhibition theme which is the only thing reattaching me to my wonderful years in Visual Arts.

2006Jessica WagnerJessica has just completed her second year at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and has continued to volunteer with a therapeutic horse riding programme there. Jess is excited to be back in Singapore for the summer.

2008Amanda DeaconAlong with three other high school stu-dents from around the country, Amanda recently made the New Zealand team for the International Biology Olympiad, which is taking place this July in Mumbai, India.

Former TeacherStuart McIntosh (1985-1990)After leaving Singapore, Iona and I went to live in Wolverhampton, UK where I was director of music until 1995. This was an excellent post after the Far East. Our children Claire and Katy settled well back into the UK and thrived in the vari-ous schools. In 1995, I accepted another amazing challenge when I went to become director of choirs at John Burroughs School in St Louis, Missouri, US. From the aca-demic yet highly musical Wolverhampton Grammar School to a wealthy independent school in the Midwest of America was a truly amazing change.

Katy settled into life as an American high school student. Claire stayed in the UK to attend Huddersfield University and achieve her degree in Theatre Studies. Iona and I led the best musical life we have ever had. We sang in professional choirs and I also ran a highly successful church choir alongside my fi ve choirs at JBS.

The American life came to an end in 2000 because of visa diffi culties and we returned to the UK. Since 2001, I have been the director of music at Kent College, Can-terbury where the Music Department has undergone a major transformation. Iona is now head of music at Clarendon House Grammar School, Ramsgate and loving every minute of her new job.

Claire is married to Stuart and they live in Nottingham. Katy is married to Layton and they live with their two children, Cole and Daisy in Wolverhampton.

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orth June 2008 31

Please plan to join your former classmates and friends in Singapore in August 2008 to revisit and reconnect.

The classes of 1978, 1988 and 1998 are invited to celebrate their 30 year, 20 year and 10 year reunions respectively in Singapore on the weekend

of 22- 24 August 2008.

Any other alumni who wish to join the reunion are welcome as well.

Check the alumni website and contact the alumni offi ce or the individual class organisers for more details and/or to register.

Second annual reunion in Singapore! 2009

Watch for updates!

Hong Kong get-together December 2008

Alumni in Hong Kong are invited to join the alumni team for a get-together there in early December.

To sign up for any of the above events, please register online at

http://alumni.uwcsea.edu.sg/eventsor email

alumni@uwcsea.edu.sg (Please indicate event in subject line)

First Annual Reunion of the 30 year, 20 year and 10 year

anniversary classes!22- 24 August 2008

UPCOMING REUNIONS

Class of 1983 - 25 year Reunion July 2008

The Class of 1983 will be celebrating their 25 year anniversary in London, 25 to 27 July 2008.

Classes of 1993/94 Reunion August 2008

Reunite with your classmates from the Classes of 1993 and 1994 in Singapore from 22 to 24 August 2008!

Printed on 100% recycled paper.

United World College of South East Asia 1207 Dover Road Singapore 139654alumni@uwcsea.edu.sghttp://alumni.uwcsea.edu.sgwww.uwcsea.edu.sg

United World College of South East Asia

UWCSEA