Favor - Reports from the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize

Between Thursday the 8th of December and Monday the 12th I was granted permission by the head teacher to attend a trip to Oslo, Norway for the 2016 Nobel peace prize. I was accompanied to the event by a youth organisation called the Renaissance Foundation.

We stayed at the comfort hotel which was of walking distance to the peace centre, where the ceremony took place. In Oslo we met with a Norwegian group, S.T.O.L.T and visited a few places with them such as ‘the thief’, ‘Statoil’ and an art museum. The weather in Oslo was not too bad with the temperature between 2°C and 5°C.

The Nobel peace prize was awarded to the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end”. In his Spanish given speech, he talked about how all humans belong to one race, which was humanity and how he was very thankful that the world had one war less. The event which I was privileged to attend was full of security and everyone had to show their passports before they could be allowed into the hall.

After the ceremony, there was a torch parade and the streets were just filled with lots of people. It was impossible to go anywhere so I stayed back at the hotel. As I watched on the TV, they seemed to be following Juan Santos who was going to the grand hotel. When he arrived there he went to the balcony and waved at everyone out there. Most of them were, as expected, Colombians.

The next day we attended the Nobel peace prize concert with the Norwegians at the Telenor Arena which was hosted by American comedian Conan O’ Brien. There were other celebrities too such as Juanes, Marcus and Martinus, and Sting. When the show ended, we were entertained by a special visit from Conan. I spoke to him about his thoughts on peace and his response was that peace starts at home – you must get along with the people you see on a daily basis before you can even think of bringing peace to a whole nation. I took the opportunity to ask him for a selfie which I knew he would not refuse so everyone else in the group followed to do the same. At the end of the day we all took a group picture and did the mannequin challenge with Conan, which most of you know is being done worldwide right now.

On Monday we went back to the thief hotel but without S.T.O.L.T and had a short briefing with the owner. We talked about our passions individually and future ambitions and he encouraged us to pursue and work towards our goals. I could sense a special connection between him and I since we both supported the same football team – the current premier league leaders, Chelsea Football Club. We were able to catch our flight, and we arrived back in London just before 5pm.

My highlight of the trip to Oslo has got to be attending the concert and meeting with the host. I particularly enjoyed visiting the thief hotel too, the presentation given by the owner was very inspiring. And finally what surprised me the most is that every Norwegian I spoke to, including the youths, could all speak English. Therefore it was not difficult to converse with anyone.

Favor - 2016