I first came to Nepal in February 2007 to attend a conference organized by the Nepalese English Teachers Association (NELTA). The conference brought together an impressive number of participants from all over Nepal. I was particularly impressed by the attendance at all the sessions – in some cases some attendees had to stand up during sessions, since the rooms could not accommodate all the people willing to participate (for me this sight was a welcome contrast to some of the academic conferences I have attended in other countries…).
I presented a session on using debate in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom, which generated a lot of interest and as a result I had an opportunity to talk to many of the English teachers who approached me for more information.
I have also had an opportunity to talk to the leadership of NELTA and initiate the process of planning a follow-up to the visit.
Working together with OSI Network Debate Program (Nina and Noel) we identified 3 more organizations that we thought we should explore the opportunities of working with: Youth Initiatives, BASE and Future Funds.
I returned to Nepal in October to conduct 2 trainings: one for youth community leaders and the other one for English teachers. Future Funds had also organized a meeting with writers and journalists who are interested in developing Nepali version of Debatabase. In addition to the two trainings OSI Network Debate Program supported organization of journalism training for youth from BASE and development of educational documentary on debate (September).
The first training I conducted was Advocacy Training organized by Youth Initiatives (7-10th October). This training was organized for a group of 25 youth from across Nepal. The young people selected for the training by YI represented diverse social, ethnic and professional background. 10 of the participants were women. 7 participants of the training were directly involved in NGO and advocacy work, while the remaining were youth activists or individuals who would like to get more involved in the work of the Youth Initiatives.
The training introduced the concept of advocacy as the means to affect policy change through effective communication and it primarily focused on the communication aspects of advocacy. After introducing the concept of advocacy and the main stages of the advocacy process, participants formed small groups (5-6 participants) which identified an advocacy issue each and embarked on a simulated advocacy process which included: framing of issues, establishment of SMART advocacy objectives, mapping of stake holders and channels of communications, development and delivery of effective messages. At the end of the exercise each group presented their mission, advocacy objectives and persuasive arguments for support of their cause during a mock public hearing/ press conference.
The last day of the training focused on debate with participants debating on the topics of their choice.
Due to the diversity of participants and relatively wide set of expectations, the advocacy part of the training focused on skills development (critical thinking and communications), while debate part focused on introducing debate as a potential activity that the participants may want to promote and get involved in their communities (colleges, etc.).
The training received positive evaluation with the debate component of the training being particularly successful and the majority of participants expressed interest in learning more about debate as well as in starting debate clubs in their educational institutions, organizations and communities.
The Debate Training for English teachers was organized with the assistance of NELTA (11-14th October) and the participants of the training were English teachers (including one social science teacher) as well as youth workers and youth activists. 28 participants of the training represented different regions of Nepal and some of the participants had attended NELTA training for the first time.
The focus of the training was on employing debate as a methodology of teaching English but I also paid special attention to using debate as an extra-curricular activity.
The training used a highly interactive approach with participants learning about each methodology by participating in representative exercises. I limited theoretical component to a minimum but made sure that participants receive extensive handouts.
The training was met with an enthusiastic response from the trainees and there is a lot of interest among the participants as well as NELTA management to start a debate program across the country.
After the NELTA training I attended a planning meeting organized by Future Funds that brought together 19 participants (youth activists, writers, journalists, ICT experts, etc.) to discuss development of on-line resources in debate for youth. The meeting focused on discussion of the feasibility of the resources, its content and presentation (with a focus on communication tools) as well as discussion of potential topics for Debatabase (a compendium of debate topics with arguments for and against). Participants suggested over 80 topics for the first round of submissions.
There is a lot of potential for the development of youth debate program in Nepal and I was really impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication of the youth activists and teachers I met and worked with. While educational debate is known in Nepal, it is often limited to most privileged private schools and colleges. The mission of IDEA and its partners in Nepal will be to bring debate to general youth population as well as communities in which they live.
I am looking forward to working with our Nepalese partners in the future and I would like to use this opportunity to extend my deepest gratitude to organizers of my trainings (Youth Initiatives, NELTA and Future Funds) as well as all participants.
Namaste
Marcin
If you would like to see pictures from Nepal and the trainings please got to:
It was really a matter of honour for us to have a great educator and trainer like Marcin here in Nepal. Loads and loads of thanks to Marcin from the side of debate lovers of Nepal.
As said by Marcin above, the seminar and the training was really very productive and useful to the participants. We can take these small events as the symbol of the beginning of a new era of a prosperous debate culture in Nepal. I was one of the participants of the "Debate Training" jointly organised with Nelta. I found the training very much useful in terms of knowledge and skills on debate education. Im planning to incorprate these components in my work with young people and young students. I'm associated with Youth Initiative (http://www.youthinitiative.org.np), and we work with young people with a mission to inform, empower and invovle them for a better society to live in.
Looking forward to join hands with all the interested and zealful people to promote debating culture thus creating a better society to live in for all of us.
I would really like to encourage debaters to check the Youth Initiatives website - they do great stuff and there may be a lot of synergies between what your youth organizations do and YI.
