Pontus Ohrstedt (USA 93-95) is currently working on the Arab States team for the United Nations Development Programme’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery in Geneva. In this role he develops and supports implementation of programmes for conflict prevention, peace building and natural disaster risk management.   He works primarily in Sudan and the occupied Palestinian territories, but also dealing with issues relating to Iraq, Somalia and Lebanon.

 

Previously Pontus held a number of roles for the United Nations in Colombia including a Project Manager for United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) responsible for a conflict-prevention and peace building project portfolio, and a Field Officer for United Nations High-Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) where he carried out extensive field-work across the remote Choco and Darién region, working with displaced indigenous and afro-Colombian communities, and communities vulnerable to the armed conflict.  Before that Pontus worked  as a field-researcher on issues of access to justice and urban social conflict and also taught a seminar series on Law and Development at the Externado University in Bogotá.

 

Pontus obtained a BA in Law and Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and a MSc in Human Rights, with emphasis on Peace and Conflict Studies, from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

 

“For me UWC opened up the possibility of an international life, career and engagement. After university I moved to Colombia where I lived and worked for six years. Through my work at both UNHCR and later the UNDP I felt that I was able to contribute to very real processes of positive social change within poor communities highly affected by the armed conflict. Both personally and professionally, some of my main achievements to date relate to the work I was privileged to be involved with during these years.” Says Pontus.

 

“Without UWC I suspect I would have gone down a very different path than the one I followed. When I was younger I was determined to study engineering combined with economics, as a solid basis for a high-paying private sector job, but after UWC my interests and ambitions were very different. First I applied to photography school in the USA, which would have been unthinkable had I stayed in Sweden. In the end I changed my mind and studied Development Economics and Comparative Law at a very multicultural university in London (the School of Oriental and African Studies – SOAS). I have followed the path of International Development ever since and I attribute this interest to my UWC education. 

 

“Being faced with the number of different perspectives on the world, both politically and culturally, as you are at UWC, has had a profound impact on the way in which I now approach difference. My work on armed conflict and violence; situations where differences become perceived as irreconcilable and each group holds an absolute truth, has been strongly influenced by my time at UWC. Trying to genuinely understand the ‘other’, regardless of the preconceptions one may hold of them, becomes essential. The UWC experience has been a very valuable foundation from which to approach this work.

 

“Before UWC I studied in a normal Swedish high-school in the area where I grew up. I had gone from day-care across the street from our house, to primary school 100 meters down the road, to high-school a couple of kilometres away. I was searching around for ways to go abroad and study, and was looking at many different options. Financial limitations meant that the fee-pay exchange option was not viable for me at that point. All of a sudden, UWC popped up from several places at once; first from friends of my family, whose son had just gone to Atlantic College and then from my neighbour who worked as a high-school guidance counsellor. I remember looking through stacks of brochures from different organisations, but there was nothing that compared to UWC.

 

“In Sweden my schooling all took place within a very homogeneous social setting, even for Swedish standards. UWC was completely different with people from all over, different ideas, ideologies, and behaviours. Everyone was different and everyone was unique. This setting also gave you the possibility to challenge yourself and all the ideas and truths you held and never had questioned. You could reinvent yourself and embrace who you really were, rather than who you thought you had to be.

 

“With regards to the actual education, UWC set a higher and more demanding standard. I had always been the top of my class in Sweden, but amongst my UWC peers I had to alter the academic expectations I had, and become more realistic about what could be achieved. I had to become less of a perfectionist and put my academic study into perspective with the other parts of my life. Overall, however, this allowed me to learn more than I ever would have done had I stayed in Sweden.

 

“It was through UWC that I met my wife, and she was the main reason I moved to Colombia after graduating from university. The wonderful prospect of having a multicultural family of my own is a direct result from my UWC experience.”