Pupils benefit from debate skills training programme

11 May, 2014 - 00:05 0 Views
Pupils benefit from debate skills training programme

The Sunday News

Sunday Leisure Correspondent
LOCAL debate pupils benefited from the expertise of a group of trainers under Australian based African Voices who were in Bulawayo last week with the aim of sharpening and strengthening debating skills. The three trainers, Fiona Prowse (World and Australasian Debating Champion), Michael Macklin (Southern African and WUPID Champion) and Lucia Pietropaoli (Australasian Grand Finalist) passed through the Madiba Open in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, two weeks back, before making their way to Bulawayo where they held training workshops with high school pupils in Zimbabwe in partnership with the Contemporary Affairs Foundation (CAF) at the latter’s premises in Suburbs.

When Sunday Leisure visited the premises, a session was in progress where some of the high school pupils from around the city were comfortably making presentations before their peers and the visiting trio, receiving constructive criticisms and tips on how to be better speakers.

“We came to Zimbabwe because this country has a very good education system right across the board and we also notice how keen and passionate the pupils here are and so it’s a good place to cultivate talent. For me this is very good for Africa because it shows that we have hope and a good future if we have such amazing young people. We often hear that things in Zimbabwe are bad but our visit here has proved that to be all falsehoods,” said Macklin who is South African and is a third year English and History student at the University of Cape Town. Macklin has been involved in debate for five years.

“We took the students through some theories they need to be acquainted with for debate and then we had a lot of practice. We also debated with the students and they really enjoyed this for some reason,” noted former Word Debate Champion (2011) Prowse who says she uses her debating skills on her job in state government in Australia.

Added Pietropaoli: “Debate is a face to face thing and we cannot really do it via social media or any other thing and so it has been incredible being here as we trained the pupils and also learnt a lot. We exchanged opinions and it was great to see how much they know about all that is going on around them in this country, in the region and even in the rest of the world.”

Pietropaoli studied at Melbourne University and has enjoyed debating and using it in her job back home in Australia.
African Voices runs world class debating workshops for students and teachers from across Africa. To date, the organisation has run training programmes for more than 2 000 students from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda in partnership with local NGOs and universities with the aim of building sustainable debating programmes.

“The organisation is driven by the belief that everyone – no matter where they were born, how wealthy they are or what political environment they live in – deserves the transformative educational experience provided by debating,” read a statement on their website.

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