Alumni initiatives
The UWC values and mission stay with our alumni long after they finish their education.
Here is a tiny sample of initiatives that UWC alumni have instigated to keep the UWC mission alive in their local community and across the world. For more information on what UWC alumni are doing, visit the
Bushfire
Waterford alumnus Jiggs Thorne
(Waterford Kamhlaba UWC) poet, performance artist and sculptor, Jiggs has organised Bushfire – a festival that creates an explosion of arts and culture in a single place in Swaziland. His aim is to create a huge social awareness of the Young Heroes programme, a local charity to support orphans and child-headed households affected by the HIV virus in Swaziland.
www.bushfire.co.sz
Equal Access to Opportunity
UWC-USA alumnus Mudit Tyagi
(USA-USA) together with his wife Amy Karon
(USA 93-95), devised a programme to help children in impoverished areas in India reach their first non subsistence job. The programme Equal Access to Opportunity’s first project is the
Akshara programme at the Mahindra UWC of India. The project aims to break the vicious cycle of poverty by providing supplementary education and support to students until they find their first non-subsistence employment opportunity.
Young Heroes
Started by Amy Burnett
(Waterford Kamhlaba UWC) when she was a student at Waterford Kamhlaba UWC and led by current students a Waterford, the Young Heroes Challenge has also become a UWC wide alumni initiative.
youngheroes.wk@gmail.com.
- The Young Heroes group at St Andrews University, Scotland, which includes UWC alumni from four UWCs have won a vote to become one the university’s nominated charities for 2009/10 which will fund a health care programme. They won the vote in the category of student run charity and the funds raised will health care programme that Young Heroes.
W.H.Y Bolivia
Mahindra UWC alumna Geraldine Paredes Vásquez
(Mahindra UWC) set up NGO W.H.Y Bolivia, a non formal education NGO focussed on intercultural dialogue, peace building, conflictresolution and leadership skills in 2005. Many UWC students and alumni have volunteered for W.H.Y Bolivia and Geraldine also partnered with UWC in the Netherlands and Anima Leadership Canada to organise a Youth Integration Summit in 2008. “This is our local application of the legacy we learned at UWC: to make education a force to unite people.”
www.whybolivia.org
Alumni profiles section.