Following their visit to UWC Maastricht and before moving to UWC Mostar, the American philanthropist Shelby Davis, his wife Gale and some friends, visited the college on Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th last.
On their first day, Gale and Shelby Davis took a tour of the college with second-year students Siham (Palestine) and Gurun (South Sudan), visiting the school building and art centre before taking lunch in Mensa with other students. Early in the afternoon they visited the science labs, where they met the students involved in the “Science with Kids” social service, holding weekly hands-on activities with local children. In the evening, they were introduced to several College donors and stakeholders.
On Friday morning, Shelby and Gale Davis met UWC Adriatic fundraisers and university counsellors before a session in the auditorium with the college community as a whole, followed by Q&A time with students. In order to sum up just how transformational the UWC experience is for its students, Sheby Davis mentioned a sentence he once read on a UWC T-shirt: “We came as strangers, we left as friends. We came expecting, we left remembering. We came as many, we left as one. We came empty, we left fulfilled.”
When addressing students who are likely to continue their education in the UWC after Duino, Shelby Davis stressed that where they go matters much less than what they will do once they get there, adding “UWC makes a better you out of you, like it has made a better me out of me”. Just as he told a journalist interviewing him for the Trieste daily “Il Piccolo”, he explained: “hanging around young people whose life is turning around is a great energizer, it makes you more optimistic and hopeful about the world. Supporting UWC is the best thing I’ve done in my life, except marrying my wife Gale.” In the interview Shelby Davis also reached out to other philanthropists in Italy, encouraging them to get to know UWC through UWC Adriatic and to support the college as a decision they would not regret.
After answering several questions, Shelby Davis concluded his talk saying “There are three kinds of people in the world: people who make things happen, people watch things happen and people who wonder what happened. Clearly, you’re going to make things happen out there!”
