{"id":1351173,"date":"2025-06-21T22:23:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T21:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwcstaging.co.uk\/?post_type=impact-story&amp;p=1351173"},"modified":"2025-06-21T22:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T21:23:27","slug":"opening-up-opportunties-for-young-iraqis","status":"publish","type":"impact-story","link":"https:\/\/dev.uwcstaging.co.uk\/es\/impact-story\/opening-up-opportunties-for-young-iraqis\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening up opportunities for young Iraqis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-dr-hans-christof-von-sponeck-uwc-iraq-focal-point-2005-2017\" style=\", sans-serif\"><strong>Dr. Hans-Christof von Sponeck (UWC Iraq Focal Point, 2005-2017)<\/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=\"\"><strong>While studying at Salem school in Germany, Dr. Hans-Christof von Sponeck was deeply influenced by Kurt Hahn\u2019s philosophy. This led to the creation of the UWC Iraq Focal Point in 2005, which was designed to find exceptional students from Iraq to study at UWC schools. In UWC\u2019s 60th Anniversary year, we spoke to Dr. von Sponeck and asked him to reflect on the power of a UWC education to change lives.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/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\" id=\"h-q-please-can-you-tell-us-about-how-your-association-with-uwc-started\" style=\", sans-serif\">Q. Please can you tell us about how your association with UWC started.<\/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>The UWC spirit was already within me because of studying at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.schule-schloss-salem.de\/en\/\">Salem school<\/a>&nbsp;in Germany.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uwc.org\/hiddenarea\/uwc-key-figures\/kurt-hahn\">Kurt Hahn<\/a>&nbsp;was my powerful and inspiring history teacher and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uwc.org\/news\/?pid=22&amp;nid=7&amp;storyid=5304\">David Sutcliffe<\/a>, the future headmaster of the UWC Atlantic, was my housemaster and English teacher. It was David Sutcliffe who many years later in early 2000 asked me to identify Iraqi students for possible scholarships at UWC Adriatic in Duino, Italy. I had just left my UN assignment in Iraq, and this started my direct involvement with the UWC system, leading to board memberships at UWC Adriatic and UWC Mostar.&nbsp;<\/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=\"\"><em>For political reasons, a regular Iraq national committee was not possible at the time, but I was determined that this shouldn\u2019t prevent young Iraqis from participating in the UWC movement, so I decided to create what I called the \u2018Iraq Focal Point\u2019 &#8211; a designation which was accepted by the UWC International Office in London and by the individual UWC schools.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\", sans-serif\" class=\"\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Hans-Christof von Sponeck (UWC Iraq Focal Point, 2005-2017) While studying at Salem school in Germany, Dr. Hans-Christof von Sponeck was deeply influenced by Kurt Hahn\u2019s philosophy. This led to the creation of the UWC Iraq Focal Point in 2005, which was designed to find exceptional students from Iraq to study at UWC schools. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1364390,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","country":[225,205],"story-category":[178,179,224,196],"class_list":["post-1351173","impact-story","type-impact-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-iraq","country-uwc-worldwide","story-category-education","story-category-peacebuilding","story-category-uwc-red-cross-nordic","story-category-uwc-robert-bosch"],"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>Opening up opportunities for young Iraqis - 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=\"Opening up opportunities for young Iraqis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Hans-Christof von Sponeck (UWC Iraq Focal Point, 2005-2017) While studying at Salem school in Germany, Dr. Hans-Christof von Sponeck was deeply influenced by Kurt Hahn\u2019s philosophy. 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