Happy New Year to all our fellow debaters!
It has been half a year since Inspire Youth Debate was founded! Over time, we had rapidly grown our debate community to one with hundreds of debaters nationwide through the several talk shows, workshops, and tournaments that we have hosted or collaborated to host. In celebration of the new year, let’s take some time to look back on what we have achieved in 2023!:
June 19: Inspire Youth Debate was founded by a group of 3 Saigon South International School’s (SSIS) students who share the same love for debate and want to spread debate in general but more specifically Public Forum debate in Vietnam.
July 29 – August 4: We hosted the first ever Public Forum debate camp in Vietnam for middle school students and organized an open tournament at the end with experienced debaters who volunteered to be the judges. We collaborated with the international debate organization Outreach Debate by inviting Justine Mach, the #1 ranked Public Forum debater in Vietnam and an incoming student at Columbia University (top 12 NU – Ivy League), to be the guest speaker on the 6th day of our camp.
September 24: Our talkshow series “Public Forum 101” started with Mr. Marvin Long Do as our first guest speaker, who shared his knowledge on rhetoric and how it can enhance your delivery in speech and debate. We then continued this series with our November talkshow with Mrs. Diana Sorobey, who discussed a Public Forum debate round from a judge’s perspective.
November 11: We organized offline training workshops for students who were unfamiliar with Public Forum debate to help them prepare for the SSIS Fall Invitational debate tournament.
November 25: With our partnership with the SSIS Speech and Debate Club, we have helped expand the SSIS Fall Invitational debate tournament to outside students and saw the largest the tournament has ever been this year with 161 competitors from 14 different schools all around Ho Chi Minh City and even a few teams from Ha Noi.
Our impact:
As of now, we have reached youth from 19 cities and provinces from the North to the South of Vietnam! (See below for more information)
What to expect in 2024?
While we will continue to host talk shows, workshops, tournaments, and camps, there is some exciting news that you can look forward to. Recently, the Vietnam Public Forum Academy (“VPFA”), our sister organization, has been launched! VPFA will offer a selection of online self-study Public Forum debate courses with an instructor who can answer your questions and concerns via appointments similar to the online classes at the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth. You can also request to study in groups through Zoom. What’s more is that all profit generated will go toward helping underprivileged children in Vietnam and other countries have access to education. In 2024, we hope to continue our mission of spreading debate to youth in other regions of Vietnam and meet new faces along the way!
Facebook of Vietnam Public Forum Academy: https://www.facebook.com/vietnampublicforumacademy/
