Louise Clemenson (UWCSEA 1997-2000) currently works for Carnegie Investment Bank, in London and also volunteers at The Christina Nobel Children’s Foundation in her spare time.

 

Louise set up a new UWCSEA Global Concerns project at the Christina Nobel Children’s Foundation in 1999. CNCF is dedicated to serving children who are in need of medical care and nutritional rehabilitation, education and professional training. Louise first heard about the Foundation and visited the Sunshine School in Vietnam during UWCSEA’s Project Week in 1999.

 

“The children at the Sunshine School were extremely poor and yet the happiest and most loving I have ever met. It was this innocence and unquestioning hope that moved me so much and drove me to set up a project to raise awareness and funds for the cause”.

 

Louise talks about UWC offering unique and amazing experiences to students, as demonstrated through her becoming involved in the Global Concerns Project whilst at UWCSEA.

 

Louise and a couple of friends started by giving presentations to students and recruited volunteers to help with the project. She ran the project as Chairperson for a year and organised events at school to raise the Foundation’s profile in Singapore. A sponsorship programme was developed so that the parents of students at UWCSEA could offer donations to provide an individual child at the foundation with ongoing care and expenses for their education.

 

In the first year the UWCSEA project group raised S$10,000 and the project was made an official GC project by the Global Concerns board. “It speaks to the UWC ideal that no young person should be denied the opportunity of a full education.”

 

UWCSEA are still involved in the scheme and are currently undertaking fundraising activities to support 15 children.

Louise says; ‘It is wonderful to still feel as though I have a link back to CNCF in Vietnam. It makes me realise to what extent the opportunities offered by UWC are unique; Global Concerns in particular is much more far-reaching a concept than I ever appreciated while at school. I now realise that the ongoing efforts of the UWC movement really do change the lives of others.”