{"id":1351137,"date":"2025-04-14T22:13:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T21:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwcstaging.co.uk\/?post_type=impact-story&amp;p=1351137"},"modified":"2025-04-14T22:13:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T21:13:30","slug":"taking-uwc-into-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","status":"publish","type":"impact-story","link":"https:\/\/dev.uwcstaging.co.uk\/es\/impact-story\/taking-uwc-into-latin-america-and-the-caribbean\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking UWC into Latin America and the Caribbean"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\", sans-serif\"><strong>Peter Stoyle (UWC&#8217;s Representative in Latin America, 1979-2010)<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\"><em>As part of our 60th anniversary celebrations, we are excited to bring you the stories of the people who have helped shape and strengthen the UWC movement over the past six decades. With an educational career spanning half a century and still going strong, Peter Stoyle has been integral to the growth of UWC\u2019s national committee system. He spent 32 years as UWC\u2019s representative for Latin America and the Caribbean &#8211; finding volunteers to start national committees across the region. He joined via Zoom from his home in Buenos Aries, and began by explaining how he unexpectedly became a headteacher rather earlier in his teaching career than he\u2019d anticipated.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">\u201cAfter University, I wanted to travel, so I got a job as an assistant teacher at a place called Peterhouse in what is now Zimbabwe. While there, I got a message about a school in Uruguay appointing a deputy head. I applied and got the job, but I discovered that the head was on the way out when I got there. So, before I&#8217;d been there six months, and before I could speak much Spanish, I found myself as head of the school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">It was a job that would earn Peter a place in history and lay the foundation for his connection to the IB and, subsequently, UWC. The school in Uruguay was none other than The British Schools of Montevideo. When Peter was its Director General, it became one of the first international schools to pilot the IB. \u201cWe were the first school to do the IB exams in the Southern Hemisphere\u201d, Peter explains, \u201cI had been following the developments of the IB for four or five years at the time, but we got even more interested when Alec Peterson, the main founder of the IB, visited us. We decided to go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/uwcstaging.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/6E3C7206690F065144B21AEC26C1F5D2-790x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1351139\" style=\"width:637px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">With&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.atlanticcollege.org\/\">UWC Atlantic College<\/a>&nbsp;as one of the first three schools in the world running the IB, it was natural that Peter should visit their campus and meet with its head&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.atlanticcollege.org\/about-us\/about-uwc-atlantic\">David Sutcliffe<\/a>&nbsp;to learn more. Then, in 1973, while in Uruguay, Peter received a visit from the deputy head of Pearson College in Uruguay to see how they could start a committee for UWC student selection throughout Latin America. \u201cSo we met with several people, and they wanted me to be the committee chair, but I said, \u2018No, I&#8217;m not Uruguayan. I think whoever&#8217;s chairing the committee should be Uruguayan.\u2019\u201d As a result, the first chair was a distinguished Uruguayan lawyer named Michael Ramon Diaz, and Peter became secretary, staying on the committee for five years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">Now fully engrossed in both the IB and UWC mission and vision, Peter visited the UWC international office in 1974 and met UWC International Secretary Robert Blackburn. \u201cThanks to him, they asked me if I would do a tour on behalf of UWC,\u201d Peter explains. \u201cSo, in 1976, I visited the committees in Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil on behalf of the movement.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">Two years later, when Peter completed his contract with The British Schools of Montevideo, he was approached by Alec Peterson and asked if he would do a \u2018grand tour\u2019 in Latin America on behalf of UWC and the IB. \u201cSo between June and July 1978, I visited Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. I remained in Uruguay until February 1979, and that\u2019s when I got a letter from Sir Ian Gourley, director-general of UWC, appointing me as the UWC representative for Latin America on the very day I left for Argentina. In the 1980s, I visited Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Some of these committees didn\u2019t exist in 1980, but they came on about a year later. One way or another, we made contacts, and the committees got started.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">On each tour, Peter focused on finding people who were aligned to UWC\u2019s mission, and who&nbsp; were prepared to devote the time and energy to the annual selection process. \u201cIt was not that difficult to find the right kind of people,\u201d he points out, \u201ca lot of the people that I knew were believers in how UWC operated. In the beginning, they were doctors, lawyers, and educators. Over time, committees added graduates until it became like it is today, almost entirely made up of UWC graduates. The national committee system is so utterly unique. I have visited international schools all over this continent and all over Latin America. Still, none of them&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;until UWC Costa Rica came into the picture \u2013&nbsp;have the same things that make UWC unique in the sense that the students are selected by these volunteer-run national committees the world over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">In addition to national committee work, Peter\u2019s trips would also focus on making new contacts that would help UWC in the country, meeting with graduates, and working for IB recognition. \u201cOver 20 years, we achieved IB recognition across Latin America,\u201d he states. The job of raising awareness for UWC, however, was far from done.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">From 2000-2010, Peter\u2019s tours continued, but only on behalf of UWC. \u201cDuring that time, I also started visiting Caribbean countries and creating new committees. This was the same time UWC had an agricultural college in Barinas in southwest Venezuela called Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar United World College of Agriculture. When it opened, the Venezuelan government offered many scholarships, and they were keen to involve the Caribbean. As a result, new committees were set up in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Barbados, St. Lucia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, St. Kitts, the Cayman Islands, and Grenada.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">The short-lived existence of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uwc.org\/news\/?pid=22&amp;nid=23&amp;storyid=55\">Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar UWC of Agriculture<\/a>&nbsp;is one of Peter\u2019s greatest disappointments. As an agricultural programme providing a UWC education to students not necessarily bound for tertiary education, it was unique to the movement. But after arranging for numerous students to attend the college from the new Caribbean national committees, it was effectively closed overnight due to a governmental dispute over the land\u2019s use.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">The highlight of Peter\u2019s UWC time, however, was his involvement in preparing and opening&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uwccostarica.org\/\">UWC Costa Rica<\/a>. \u201cI was a member of the advisory committee, effectively one of the governors, for eight years, which was the maximum you&#8217;re allowed. I think that if you were to ask me, \u2018During all those years working with UWC, is there any single event that impressed you the most?\u2019 I would certainly say it was my involvement with UWC Costa Rica.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/uwcstaging.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0272DDB0B18A481A5125236071C45FFA-790x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1351140\" style=\"width:584px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">Although yet another tour was planned for 2011, Peter\u2019s late wife became too ill for him to travel, and so his 2010 tour became his last. The amount of ground Peter has covered in his career is astonishing &#8211; and it seems that his dual role for UWC and the IB was pretty unique, although Peter remembers John Goodban &#8211; who worked at the UWC in Singapore, and later became the IB regional director for the Asia-Pacific region &#8211; \u201che and I were these two distant people working on behalf of both organisations. When we would all meet, we were on the periphery, as it were, so far from the geographical centre. But he and I became good friends,\u201d Peter reminisces, smiling.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\">But what of the future? How does Peter feel about UWC\u2019s continued importance in today\u2019s world? Unsurprisingly, Peter is unequivocal in his response:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\", sans-serif\"><em>\u00abI\u2019m absolutely convinced that educating for peace is still relevant, especially with what\u2019s going on in Russia and Ukraine, or when you consider how easily existing conflicts could develop into more war-like activities. Peace is not just a central aspect of today&#8217;s life; it\u2019s the central aspect. UWC has been delivering peace education for 60 years, and I\u2019m convinced it has more than another 60 years ahead of it. There will be more UWCs.\u201d<\/em> <em>&#8211;\u00a0<\/em><strong>Peter Stoyle (UWC&#8217;s Representative in Latin America, 1979-2010)<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Stoyle (UWC&#8217;s Representative in Latin America, 1979-2010) As part of our 60th anniversary celebrations, we are excited to bring you the stories of the people who have helped shape and strengthen the UWC movement over the past six decades. With an educational career spanning half a century and still going strong, Peter Stoyle has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1351138,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","country":[213,214,215,190,216,217],"story-category":[178,179],"class_list":["post-1351137","impact-story","type-impact-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-costarica","country-dominican-republic","country-guyana","country-singapore","country-trinidad-and-tobago","country-venezuela","story-category-education","story-category-peacebuilding"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.7.1 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Taking UWC into Latin America and the Caribbean - United World College<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taking UWC into Latin America and the Caribbean\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Peter Stoyle (UWC&#8217;s Representative in Latin America, 1979-2010) As part of our 60th anniversary celebrations, we are excited to bring you the stories of the people who have helped shape and strengthen the UWC movement over the past six decades. 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