United World
Colleges - Youth Leadership Summit
The Netherlands,
summer 2005: 50 youths from different origins, backgrounds and
cultures live and share a common experience of growth and challenge
Want
to change the world but not sure where to start?
Go
beyond black and white ways of thinking?
Become
a person whose ideas can have an impact?
These were some
of the key questions that welcomed a group of young Dutch students in
Bergen (Alkmaar) – in The Netherlands – for the project UWC-YLS,
between the 25th of June and the 9th of July.
Organised and
promoted by the Dutch National Committee of the United World Colleges,
the summit put together for two weeks more than 50 boys and girls,
representing both the traditional “white” society and the entire range
of other cultures and groups living in the Netherlands. They were
introduced to the ideas and methods of sharing experiences and points
of view, already well-experimented within the United World Colleges.
But this time, there
was a difference: in the YLS, the sharing-experience has not been
developed within an institution, but it spreads outside its borders,
“invading” another country. The Netherlands have always been at the
forefront in many ways, but recently they faced new problems linked
with the integration of immigrants; even a specific Ministry of
Integration has been created on the
issue.
As many know,
the problem of integration reached its peak in the past year with the
murder of the film director Theo van Gogh, that seemed to have
offended, with his art, the consciousness of many Muslims. Since then,
the Dutch Government demonstrated to appreciate all those initiatives
that can contribute to improve integration.
Hence,
the main themes that guided the young people were Integration and
Leadership, the former intended as the essential instrument to propose
a model of inclusive interaction with the ‘other’. The topic of
Leadership, instead, is an hard core of the entire philosophy of the
UWC movement. The idea is to provide every youth with those essential
skills and capabilities that allow him to become an active member of
the community in which he lives, works or studies. Being active, taking
the initiative on everything that concerns our existence and our role,
being aware of global issues: these are all necessary instruments of
personal growth; looking at the future, but with visible effects
already in the present.
This was the
starting point, and the YLS summit aimed at giving this great
opportunity to young people from the entire multicultural Dutch
society.
During the
summit many aspects of global awareness have been touched.
Globalisation, human rights, labour rights, corporate responsibility,
anti-racism, democracy, social justice: these are some of the topics
that have been discussed. Thanks to the hard work of the co-ordinators
and facilitators, that guided the entire process, all discussions
brought to equilibrated, reasonable and, in particular, consensual
conclusions.
Constant effort
was put in concrete examples that actualise the five basic principles
of community living:
understanding,
respect, communication, responsibility, integrity.
Many other
activities aimed at personal growth and self-discovery of every
participant; for such a young audience, group activities, excursions
and performances were the best moments of aggregation and
sharing-experience. Also the educative moments gave extraordinary
results. In particular, art and creativity, within this extraordinary
experience, gathered the feelings and emotions of all those involved.
Even the Blooming
Hotel (where the summit took place)
conveyed a special atmosphere. Thanks to the work of all the Blooming
stuff, the hotel became the ideal set-up for an exemplary community, in
which art is constantly present. The Blooming Hotel, we believe, is a
real “unicum”: everywhere and from every point of view art is present,
in details as in big pieces, revealing an artistic atmosphere that
touches every soul.
The experience
that the participants lived at YLS left them a tangible mark, also
through the emotional side of their being. Their sensibility, the
engine that produces feelings, has always been involved. If the
feelings are positive, they produce an healthy model of behaviour and
the willingness to spread it. This happened at YLS, guided by the
spirit that drove the entire experience.
Essential
was also the role of 10 UWC ex-students, coming from all over the world
(Netherlands, China, Ethiopia, Singapore, Uruguay, Israel, Italy, Czech
Rep., Canada), that brilliantly covered the role of facilitators as
role-models. The co-ordinators were five; they efficaciously brought at
YLS their long experience in a similar programme at the Pearson College
in Canada (PSYL, that runs for more than 14 years).
At YLS a
further element was introduced: the artistic and creative activity of
photography. The practice of photography became a very useful
instrument, not only because of the images produced, but mainly as an
instrument of aggregation and integration. This idea, successfully
developed in more than 25 years at the United World College of the Adriatic (Italy),
proved to be true also at YLS.
The
International Centre of Photographic Art (CIAF) of Trieste
(Italy) proposed and developed a series of lessons on the theme: Visual
and Photographic Communication. The participants were extremely
enthusiasts. The practical sessions, in particular, aimed at
experimenting the learned concepts, but also created an atmosphere of
“micro-integration”. The photographic “party” that we realised in an
improvised studio is an experience of integration: it gives freedom to
the self (in a Freudian sense) and to its creativity, the photographer
opens himself to the others, makes himself known, discovers and
rediscovers the
‘other’.
This method is
very effective, particularly if we consider that, at a psychic level,
the perceptive mental structure are developed more than the cognitive
ones (stimulated in other occasions).
Photography
has been the red-thread of a “let’s create together” spirit, without
hierarchies, without differences, without stereotypes. The participants
produced wonderful images; they developed together a project and they
designed an emblematic
poster presented to the Dutch Minister of Integration:
Rita Verdonk. The minister, in fact, intervened to the summit,
demonstrated great appreciation for the initiative and hope that the
summit will be held again; she underlined how in the youth and in their
potentiality is the hope for changing.
September 2005
Mario Sgarrella
– Angelo Friolo