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Living.UWC Thailand
ADVERTORIAL
A Community Rallies:
UWC Thailand’s Project Independence In a year rife with global challenges — COVID-19, senseless shootings, divisive politics, famine, record unemployment and economic recessions — it has been hard to find moments that inspire hope and unity amidst the chaos.
For UWC Thailand, the disruptivity of 2020 was compounded by an existential funding crisis here at home. In mid-January, the school’s founder and staunchest supporter for over a decade, made a heart-breaking call to the board chair, “We needed to find alternative funding as of June 2020 for UWC Thailand.” The situation went from bad to bleak with campus closures, online learning, businesses closing around the island, tambon lockdowns, and families with sick—or lost—loved ones. Yet through it all, our amazing community did not sway in their belief that UWC Thailand was a school worth saving. Thanks to their belief, and the hard work of countless people I now consider heroes, we stand here today: campus open, kids learning and playing, the mindfulness centre busy, national committee students arriving weekly from across the globe, a new school board in place — a new “normal.” Of course, the road to get here was anything but normal. Not long after we learned of the funding challenge, we began talking to a small group of parents, brainstorming what it would take to purchase the school’s land and
buildings from the current landholder; our neighbour and ongoing partner, Thanyapura. While the school had always operated independently, without being in control of our own physical assets, we felt we would never truly be in control of our own future. In one of those early conversations it was pointed out that the Chinese character for crisis is a combination of two other characters — “danger” and “opportunity” — and so here amongst the danger, we found our opportunity. In a matter of just a few weeks, this small group of parents took up the mantle of humble heroes as they worked with the school’s leadership and the team at Thanyapura to create the broad outlines of a deal to purchase the land and buildings from Thanyapura on behalf of the school’s foundation. This point was key because in order to set the school up for long-term success, we were not looking to be bought by parents or any single-family, but to raise funds so that the foundation could purchase the land and buildings itself. Fundraising is what we needed and that is exactly what we got. Once the broad outline of the deal was put together, we determined that we would need the equivalent of US$10 million in order to purchase the physical assets and windowonphuket.com
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