A special event in light of the Covid-19 pandemic under the slogan “Our Land is Our Sanctuary”

Doha – QatarDebate Center

The Fifth International School Debating Championship launched this morning, Saturday 3rd of April, organized by QatarDebate Center – a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development – in its virtual version – under the slogan – “Our Land is Our Sanctuary”.

This tournament is considered a distinct event in light of the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic, as youth delegations from all over the world gather in one “virtual” place over a five day period, despite the different distances and timing.

This, of course, gives an idea of the size of the efforts made for this tournament and the technical and logistical preparations for building effective communication networks based mainly on software and electronic communications in line with the nature of remote meeting, and dealing with issues that directly affect human life, environment and natural resources.

Mr. Abdulaziz Al-Shamlan – Program Specialist

Abdul Aziz Al-Shamlan – said that the opening ceremony of the tournament was filmed and prepared for the first time a month ago and in more than one location, and it will be shown to the followers through YouTube after the participants attended the ZOOM platform from 9:30 am.

Referring to the diversity of the content of the ceremony that will be presented by Gorour Abdul Wahed, the most important of which is a recorded speech related to the championship slogan, “Our Land is Our Sanctuary,” presented by His Excellency the Minister of Municipality and Environment, Mr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Subaie, adding: “Everyone then will return to the ZOOM platform to start the debate rounds right after the adjudicators’ training workshop.”

Mr. Salman Ali, debate coach at QatarDebate

“The first day will witness training workshops for judges and coaches, followed by debate rounds for all participating teams, after the opening ceremony.”

With regard to the participating teams, the center’s coach, Muhammad Salman Ali, said: “40 Arabic speaking teams and non-Arabic speakers representing 40 countries are participating in the tournament. The teams consists of 4-5 speakers. The advantage of this year’s tournament is that most of the team coaches are QatarDebate graduates who participated in previous international tournaments and they took over the task of preparing and training the team, such as Turkey. The best debaters, and this is evidence of the continuity of debate activities in the world and its expansion.”

What’s new in this Tournament?

The tournament is fully virtual for the first time ever due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, and also for the first time, the Center is introducing an English category to the championship with the participation of 46 teams.