Youngsters from all over the world will flock to the University of Warwick this summer to attend the UK’s first International Baccalaureate (IB) conference.

The conference, from August 4-9, will see 150 students coming to the University. Of those, 10 students have been awarded scholarships totalling £20,000 by the University of Warwick to cover travel, accommodation and conference participation costs.

These 10 scholarship students are from countries including China, Nepal, Australia, USA, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Kenya and Serbia.

There are four IB World Student Conferences being held throughout the world this year, but this is the first time one has been staged in the UK.

The theme of the conference at Warwick is Utopian Visions: Employing the Arts for Social and Political Change.

Actor-filmmaker Jeremy Gilley, the founder of the non-profit Peace One Day, will welcome conference goers during the opening ceremony. Peace One Day aims to have people all over the world honour 21 September annually as Peace Day, a day of global unity and widespread intercultural cooperation.

The conference will culminate in a finale which will see a performance of Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Sing.

One of the students to have won a scholarship is Maya-Lhanze Lama (17) from Lalitpur, Nepal. She said:

“The Warwick University IB conference is a unique platform where students from around the world will meet and share an experience of learning and fun.

“It is an opportunity to grow and step out of our comfort zones together, to come out more aware of the world we live in.

“I hope to meet people from the four corners of the planet and become more connected and acquainted with our world and its situation.

“ Together, we can envision a world of positive change through the Arts, a world that we have the responsibility to nurture, not only as students, but as people.”

Another scholarship student, Harshini Karunaratne, aged 17, from Sri Lanka, said:

“I am really looking forward to the IB World Student Conference at Warwick. I know that it is just going to be an experience that will stay close to me for a lifetime, as will the people I will meet, learn from and share this experience with.

“I expect that it will be a really enriching conference, one that I will learn not only about the impact art can have socially and politically, but I will also learn a lot about myself in the realm of creative arts and my own impact as a global citizen.

“I’m also really excited to visit Warwick and indulge in such a different culture from my own, and I hope we will get the opportunity to truly experience this off campus.”

Attendees will choose from a range of arts-based sessions including singing, dance and creative writing.

The programme also includes a trip to Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon as well as a session on the University of Warwick’s IGGY , an online community for gifted students across the world.

The IB World Student Conferences, hosted by four universities from June to August, are open to students in their first year of the Diploma Programme (DP) or IB Career-related Certificate (IBCC), or those who will enter the DP or IBCC during 2013.

The University of Warwick is partnered by the RSA Academy in Tipton to run the UK event.

ENDS

Please contact University of Warwick press officer Anna Blackaby on 02476 575910 or a dot blackaby at warwick dot ac dot uk

Please contact University of Warwick press officer Anna Blackaby on 02476 575910 or a.blackaby@warwick.ac.uk