“The ACS Foundation has awarded a Peace Prize since 1997 to a student or group of students aged between 14-18 who have undertaken a substantial body of work that promotes understanding of different philosophies and cultures, and instills respect for people, their work, the environment, and the advancement of global harmony.

We inspire our students to become successful lifelong learners and responsible global citizens.  We promote high standards of scholarship and challenge all members of the community to fulfil their potential.”

The above statements give you an outlook of the Prize and the expectations we hope our students might strive for in their latter years at ACS in building some form of personal foundation in their future.

On 12 October, students of grades 10 & 11, along with some faculty and parents, attended the prestigious Peace Prize Ceremony at the Cobham Campus.  ACS Cobham provided us with beautiful music for the Prelude, and Recessional played by their Chamber Ensemble; a Piano Recital for the Procession was played by our Irina Walters and the ACS Cobham High School Singers sang a musical interlude for us. Mr Malcolm Kay, ACS Superintendent gave the welcoming address followed by the guest speaker, Mr Paul Rusesabagina, who is the courageous real-life inspiration behind the Oscar nominated film ‘Hotel Rwanda’.  As head of the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, Paul travels the world inspiring others to support, care for and protect the victims of conflict. We listened to a very condensed story of his struggle of survival along side his family and friends and how he helped to liberate over 1000 friends and fellow countrymen.

Paul then presented the ACS Group Winner Prize. The team, ACS Cobham Namibia Team 2006/07, presented their project ‘Technology Changes Lives’. They helped to set up communication through IT in a classroom in a Namibian School providing laptops, global communication and educational instruction to teachers to run the laptops. They also secured a computer company to supply several new laptops each year to the project. This project will continue into the future with a new group.

The second Prize was awarded to an ACS individual, Jake Masters for his project ‘Working with children in South Africa’.  Having listened to his heart-warming story of watching a small child in an orphanage continually crying, he found out the reason. A toy, his one and only, had been taken away from him.  Jake could not even find an old tennis ball to appease the small and delicate child. While there, he wrote and email to a family member to dig out his old box of beanie babies. They were finally distributed at the orphanage.  The word spread among his friends and family and soon he was making returning visits with more beanie babies and toys to fill several suitcases. His work has spread further a field now to a small school where he has now found outside help to be able to let the children be educated beyond 3 years old. His goal is to see that first class graduate in about 10 years time.

Our global winner, Adoree Kim, told us her story ‘Pursued by Dragons, a will to survive’, a film documentary of the North Korean refugees in China and South Korea. Having researched her topic Adoree made a trek to China and South Korea to speak to the refugees to hear their side of their quest for freedom.  At first most were sceptical of her and actually laughed at her and her age!! They finally realized she was serious and concerned and wanted to share their story with the world from their points of view. Adoree was also awarded the American University Scholarship on the AU Semester campus in Washington DC.

The aim of the ACS Foundation is to ‘inspire our students to become successful lifelong learners and responsible global citizens, promoting high standards of scholarship and challenging all members of the community to fulfil their potential’.