The students of the international UWC Dilijan also took part in the events of the Aurora Prize ceremony: several guests of honor, including the inaugural Aurora Prize Laureate, visited the school. Each of the meetings turned out to be a one-of-a-kind lesson in humanity for the future leaders.
 

Following the welcome tour of the school for each of the guests of honor, the students had an opportunity to pose their questions to the actor and philanthropist George Clooney and international activist John Prendergast, the co-founders of Not On Our Watch organization that seeks to prevent future genocides and human rights violations. The sutdents also had a chance to have a conversation with the first Aurora Prize Laureate Marguerite Barankitse and the legendary French singer Charles Aznavour.

The actor and philanthropist George Clooney visited Dilijan on April 23, and was shown around the school by one of the students, Pamela Tebchrany.

Pamela is the first laureate of the Amal Clooney Scholarship, which gave her an opportunity to study at UWC Dilijan for two years.

The young native of Lebanon speaks Arabic, English, and French, and plans to study human rights, so that in the future she can promote equality for women.

After the tour came the time to answer questions from the UWC Dilijan students.

“I was always involved in one way or another. I remember reading this wonderful writer, Nicolаs Christopher. He was writing for The New York Times [about] what was going on in Darfur, but there was not much coverage. I thought, I am getting enough attention, too much, really. Why not go somewhere where cameras follow me and talk about something which much more important than what suit I wear on red carpet? And it became a long relationship, not just with Darfur specifically, but with Sudan in general,” George Clooney said.

International humanitarian activist John Prendergast (left) talked to the students about the importance of learning to carefully listen to people from other cultures. “Go to other countries and learn about their history, about the complex political backstories of their strife. Listen. The more you learn, the more you realize that you know nothing,” he noted.

“Most of the time we fail. The reality is you have to stay on it for the long period of time. Even when you do all that, the victories are very few. Because all of these things we talked about it takes much more than a single event to change [the situation],” was another piece of wisdom from George Clooney to the future leaders.

The Aurora Prize Laureate Marguerite Barankitse visited UWC Dilijan College on April 25, on the next day after the inaugural award ceremony. 

The opportunity to speak to a real hero who risked her life to save more than 30,000 children was especially exciting for the students.

“When you have compassion, dignity and love then nothing can scare you, nothing can stop you – no one can stop love. Not armies, not hate, not persecution, not famine, nothing,” Marguerite Barankitse told the students.
 

The school installed a special plaque with a QR code that leads to a webpage with information about Marguerite Barankitse. The plaque was installed in a special corner of the school, which already has similar plaques dedicated to such famous humanitarians as Fridtjof Nansen, Mother Teresa, Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela.

Exactly a year ago Barankitse was forced to flee from her native Burundi. Now she has opened a branch of her charity organization Maison Shalom in Rwanda, where she moved to escape the repressions. Marguerite Barankitse is trying to raise the funds that will allow her to provide the refugee children with education: “I want them to return to Burundi as doctors and agriculture specialists, not as armed rebels.”

On the same day the students were pleasantly surprised by another visit — this time from the famous French singer and philanthropist of Armenian descent Charles Aznavour. 

The students of UWC Dilijan College greet the great French musician with applause.

Charles Aznavour, the school’s director John Puddefoot (left), and co-founder of UWC Dilijan College Veronika Zonabend.

The students performed a national Armenian song for the guest of honor.

Armenia is especially grateful to Charles Aznavour for his humanitarian efforts in the aftermath of 1988 Spitak earthquake. Following the tragedy, he founded a charity foundation “Aznavour for Armenia,” and organized several charity drives to collect money and humanitarian aid for the Armenians.

Following the welcome tour of the school, the students showed the guest their art projects, which received high marks from the great singer.

A picture to remember the legend of the French music scene.