RIYADH, 28 June 2005 — Six Saudi schoolboys will join four British students on a journey to jointly explore the arctic archipelago of Svalbard off the northern coast of Norway.
The six boys — three of them from King Faisal International Schools and the other three from the Kingdom Schools — will leave Riyadh for Britain tomorrow. On July 1, the Saudi and British boys will come together at a ceremony to be hosted by Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Britain, at Windlesham House School (WHS) in West Sussex. On July 3, they will leave UK for Norway.
The journey is the first of a series of annual ventures linked to the Connecting Cultures initiative established by WHS teacher Mark Evans, who formerly taught in the Kingdom. The boys will spend 14 days on the arctic islands off the northern coast of Norway.
The six students were given a send-off ceremony yesterday at the Norwegian Embassy in Riyadh. The ceremony was attended by Dr. Saleh Al-Namla, deputy minister of culture and information, and Norwegian Ambassador Jan Bugge-Mahrt. Parents, teachers and journalists also took part.
