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9 March 2011

Nigerian Nationals 2011‏

Debate and Development Resource Center, Nigeria, the coordinator of Nigerian Debate Movement and University of Calabar Debate Club is proud to organize Nigeria Universities Debating Championship (The Nigerian Nationals-2011) to be held in University of Calabar, on August 13-19, 2011.

This year edition promises to bring together top debate teams and student public speakers from across the country and other West African neighbors like Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Gambia and offer them all a unique chance to interact with each other and engage in fun and high intensity student tournament. This will also be a wonderful opportunity for all the teams to experience the new styles of international debating and explore the peaceful city of Calabar. We therefore invite university students as well as Secondary school students to apply for this week -long debate talent hunt: There will be a parallel tournament so as to allow both students from the universities and high schools to benefit from this tournament so as to spread the culture of debating.

The event would also bring top trainers and adjudicators from Botswana, US and UK.

Programmes: Training, Debate, cultural exposition, public speaking, conference and interactive show with leaders in business, civil society and government. This debating championship will provide a forum in which Nigeria and West African students can be exposed to new ideas, discuss a range of topical issues and be challenged to think critically. This tournament will also be used to elect members in Nigeria Debate Movement Board which will facilitate the dissemination of training materials, coordinate Nigeria Debating events and organize trainings, all to ensure sustainability and spread of debate across Nigeria.

The conference will welcome scholars and educators from diverse fields for vigorous dialogue and exchange. We intend for the conference to welcome all who are involved in public discussions and debates about different issues in Nigeria and internationally. We also expect students from the following faculties; Law, Business, Marketing and communication to seize this opportunity to learn the skills on argumentation and rhetoric, debate and critical thinking, . We will be bringing international experts to handle all the sessions.

Registration: $25 per person for Nigerian students and $65 for international participants. This would cover all the boarding & lodging arrangements, meals for 6 days, all competition venues and transportation, social events, opening and breaking night parties, cultural expo night/talent hunt and a visit to the tourist locations. It also includes a speaker and coach training workshop for 2 days and adjudication tests. Each school can only enter up to 5 participants with a coach. Students from Senior and Junior secondary schools who completed school in the last six months and are not yet registered at a tertiary institution are eligible to participate as representative of their former school

Prizes: The winner for both University and Secondary schools categories will win the maiden Nigerian Champion of Champions Cup.

The best Speaker- Public Speaker Cup

The best Judge Award

Debate Format: British Parliamentary

Registration Deadline: July 1st, 2011.

Registration procedures: Register here with this link and send us an intent email to registration@debatenigeria.org if you have any question or requesting for Bank information.

This championship promises to be thrilling, exciting and adventurous

…. Don’t miss out  200 Debaters, 1 Champion

Debate Nigeria

8 March 2011

New debating podcasts available

During the World Debate Forum held in Botswana in January 2011 many African debate organizers said that they needed basic training materials, but that the poor conditions of local Internet connectivity made it difficult for them to use videos. As a solution, Alfred Snider (World Debate Institute and Debate Central) volunteered to take video training files and turn them into audio only, then organize them and make them available for download.

http://debate.uvm.edu/low.html
The podcasts include presentations from the World Schools Debate Academy, International Debate Academy, East Debate Institute, the World Debate Institute's world schools session and the Serbia Debate Academy.  There are also two WUDC format debates from the USA and two WSDC format debates from Europe. They are available as mp3 files. Download them, load them up in any mp3 player, and enjoy.

7 March 2011

Some brief snippets of news

A few interesting but brief updates popped up on my google reader this morning.  Rather than post them separately I'll combine them together into one post.

- According to Cambridge student newspaper The Tab WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will address Cambridge Union Debating Society on Tuesday, March 15.  Should be an interesting debate if you are in the Cambridge area.


Vienna IV winners
 - You may have seen the post with a link to videos from the Vienna IV over the weekend.  You may even have watched some of the debates on line.  Well the overall result was a victory for the Colgate team of Austin Schwartz and Travis Steele.  In the final they beat Galatasaray (Engin Arikan & Denizhan Kilic) Heidelberg (Jan Lüken & Marcus Ewald), Belgrade (Goran Jankuloski & Tijana Mejalkovic). 

The motion was This house believes that parties’ electoral campaigns should only be funded by the state.

You can find the video of the final plus the full results at http://viv11.debattierklubwien.at/

- Finally the University of Limerick Debating Union will be awarding it's annual Auditor's medal for contribution to discourse and debating to Dr Garret Fitzgerald, former Taoiseach of Ireland,.  The presentation will be made to Dr Fitzgerald on Thursday 10th March in UL.  All going well I plan to attend.

6 March 2011

Live debates from Vienna IV

If you want to watch some live debates (or recordings of debates) today there is live video coverage of the Vienna IV on Ustream

Visit http://www.ustream.tv/channel/vienna-iv-2011 or http://viv11.debattierklubwien.at/ to follow the debates.