Curtis Palmer (LPC 96-98) currently works on a project basis for the Canadian Red Cross after a three year stint in Nepal as an Interpreter of Nepali Language for the International Committee of the Red Cross. 

 

Previously Curtis undertook a Summer Language Bursary programme in Chicoutimi, Quebec and completed a double major Bachelors degree in Slavonic Studies /Linguistics from the University of Victoria, Canada.  Curtis volunteered as a teacher in Nepal for two years immediately following graduation from the Arts 1 programme at the University of British Columbia Canada. 

 

“It would be difficult for me to overestimate the impact of the two years I spent at UWC, as the experiences and relationships of this period continue to shape my daily life, nine years on.  I am hard pressed to imagine what direction my life would have taken had I not attended a UWC; a very different one, to be sure.  As it is, I have spent the last several years working for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Nepal, a position in which I found myself only as a result of the ideals of global citizenship which the UWC movement aims to instill.  While it is not inconceivable that I would have come to hold the idea of human equality as self evident even had I not been afforded the opportunity to study in a truly international environment, far beyond my personal 'comfort zone,' I believe that it is highly unlikely.  Moreover, only because of a close friendship with my Nepali co-year did I first travel to Nepal, a country of which I knew almost nothing, a trip which planted the seeds of my eventual profession as a Nepali language interpreter.  To this point in my life (and for the foreseeable future) my educational and professional decisions have all been driven, on some level, by a belief in the ideals of the movement, and a desire to be worthy of the investment made in me by actively serving humanity in whatever capacity I am able” Curtis enthuses. 

 

“Prior to my two years at Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong I had never traveled beyond the North American continent, living a fair approximation of white-bread conservative monolingual suburban normalcy.  My own UWC experience, then, was far from being a simple academic exercise, capped off by a piece of paper – it forced me into consideration of realities beyond my own, in all spheres of life: cultural, religious, linguistic, sexual, and familial.  It would be no exaggeration to say that LPC made me aware that the rest of the world did in fact exist.  LPCUWC forever changed the way in which I read a newspaper - gone is the presumptuous indifference that was my birthright, replaced by the idea that events in far off lands may in fact impact real people (not unlike the ones next to whom I brushed my teeth, with whom I ate, shared a room or a bed, joked, and sorted out the problems of the world for two largely sleepless years). Indeed, in retrospect, it is difficult to conceive of a more broadening and immersive experience. 

 

 “I would unhesitatingly recommend a UWC education to anyone with the fortitude and stubbornness to pursue one.  My own children (at this point theoretical) can look forward to being pushed, rather forcefully, in this direction.  It is not that the UWC experience is inherently 'good,' rather that it is inherently intense, and peopled by amazing personalities, given free reign in strange and geographically separate environments.  Had I learned nothing at all about economics, literature, or French during my time at a UWC the lessons learned about myself, and other human beings, more than justify the experience.  Now, at 28, although I am not currently directly involved with the UWC movement I am associated with a number of voluntary and service organizations, including both the Canadian Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross.  A feeling of indebtedness to those who gave me the chance to study in this amazing environment seems likely to persist throughout my professional career, and will continue to inform my choices, and my value system, for the rest of my life.”