Karla Ruiz

I was born and raised in Piura, Peru, where I attended a highly selective boating school in Lima when I was awarded the UWC Peru National Committee scholarship and found myself moving to Singapore at the age of 17 to study at UWCSEA.

Right now I live in New Delhi, India, working as part of a leadership development programme under a two-year fellowship with The Global Education and Leadership Foundation. Two young leaders - including myself - are trained in six different branches from politics and public policy to marketing and communications to spirituality. The idea is for us to actually run the organisation but at the same time we develop large projects. We have initiatives such as the Life Challenge, which is a gamified version of the sustainable development goals, and we run actually that with UWCSEA. Young people have to develop prototypes and run an incubator to continue with their projects. One team that won the challenge developed an app to help people to find the nearest hospital, which could potentially be used in places where people don't have access to medical health or services close to them.  We also have worked with the government of India and spiritual leaders from different religions.  

Coming to UWCSEA as a scholar was an amazing opportunity. I arrived in Singapore not knowing English, so it was a very interesting experience to start the IB diploma without speaking the language. But it was amazing because it taught me a lot of things. I was always very vocal, always speaking English, which helped me learn and listen to more people in order to be able to communicate. There were several scholars who also did not speak English, and it was a great opportunity for us to grow - though quite a transition because IB definitely is a very challenging programme compared to regular high schools.

Looking back, my favourite class at UWCSEA was Geography under Simon Bignell. In one of the lessons, we were discussing what a central business district looks like in different cities. He wanted to understand our exposure to cities and what it means to actually ‘know’ a city.  We were asked if we had ever been to a market by ourselves - to buy food for ourselves the next day. Only the scholars from Cambodia raised their hands. At that moment, it didn’t feel like that lesson changed my life. But over time it made me think about how powerful UWCSEA is - with people from so many different backgrounds. Some students here never needed to go to the market by themselves to buy basic things; but for some of us it was our daily life. If my friend from Cambodia and I were not in the classroom, my classmates would have only learned about markets and CBDs and economics only through a book.

Being at UWCSEA especially made me very conscious about what it means to have a quality education. I attended a very good school in Peru, but it was still a government school, so of course there were many limitations about that education. UWCSEA opened my eyes to this whole different world, a world with opportunities, access to technology and all the resources that a student could ever need.

But it also made me thankful for those opportunities, because out of a pool of thousands and millions of students in Peru, I was the lucky one to come here. UWCSEA taught me that education is extremely important; not only by-the-book education, but also the ability to relate to and learn from people who are completely different to you, who have different perspectives and values. It challenged my reality for good, and made me explore places outside of my comfort zone, which as a 17-year-old was just life-changing. But most importantly, it taught me to give back to the people that selected me back at UWC Peru and to give to UWCSEA as a community itself. I hope to one day go to graduate school, to study international relations and focus on immigration. I would also like to go back to Latin America and I know that sooner rather than later there will be new challenges in that region and somebody will have to work on them.

It just naturally came because as I was here for two years, I realised my teachers, my university counselors, the cleaners at the school cafeteria, my friends in the boarding house, shaped me for good. And that created a love and respect for this environment that always told me you have to give back one way or another. 

My concept of good is not necessarily everyone’s concept of good, but I truly believe that a better world is more generous, equal and a world with empathy. The mission of UWC resonates a lot with me. I cannot be the last generation to enjoy our beautiful planet.  

A better world has better access to opportunities - the moment you give these opportunities to children, to young women, to people that have never seen such opportunities before, you change their lives. That’s what UWC does; it opens your eyes to a world full of possibilities and empowers you and makes you dream big.