Introducing EA to United World Colleges? (UWC alum here, curious to explore the overlap)

By Unwobblypanda @ 2025-04-21T04:05 (+5)

Hi everyone,

I wanted to throw an idea out to the Forum and see if there’s any shared excitement, advice, or helpful pushback.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we might bring Effective Altruism concepts to United World Colleges (UWC) — a global network of high schools focused on intercultural understanding, peacebuilding, and sustainability.

For those unfamiliar: UWC schools bring together students (ages 16–19) from across the world to live and learn together, usually on scholarship. The mission is pretty idealistic —  “uniting people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future” — and honestly, the student culture reflects that. People come in asking big questions: What matters most? What’s worth dedicating my life to? What does global citizenship mean in practice?

Which sounds... familiar.

As an alum of UWC Costa Rica, I can say from experience that a lot of students are genuinely interested in making a difference — but the frameworks they’re given are sometimes vague or moral-intuition-based. There's a lot of passion, but not always the rigor or clarity that EA offers. (Ie. would barefoot Tuesday dismantle hierarchy or just give everyone ringworm?)

 I’m thinking along the lines of;

• Fellowships/workshops run by UWC alums who are now in EA,
• Integration of EA content into UWC’s existing social impact programming,
• Summer programs, essay contests, or funding for EA-related student projects,
• A soft bridge into university EA groups for UWC grads.

Questions I’m sitting with:

• Has this been tried before? (I’ve seen bits of discussion on high school outreach, but not UWC specifically.)
• What frameworks or resources would work best with a younger, globally diverse audience?
• How do we not come off as preachy or prescriptive — especially in environments already wary of Western-centric “impact” language?

If you’re a  UWC alum, someone working on EA outreach, or just a fellow well-meaning idealist who thought Model UN could end real wars if we just tried— I’d love to hear from you!