Samriddhi, The Prosperity Foundation in association with Debate Nepal Network presented The Liberty Debates during 2016 – a three month long debate engagement series on ‘All Things Liberty’.
It was created to engage young minds in a discussion about the concept of economic freedom, whilst also encouraging opposing arguments on chosen topics in order for participants to gain an all round view of the issues under debate. Samriddhi wanted to improve students ability to debate, their research skills and public speaking skills.
A two day event took place in each three months. The first morning devoted to introducing classical liberal ideas on a theme and the afternoon to training participants on the British Parliamentary debating format and its techniques. On the second day teams took part in live debates and were provided with constructive feedback and on their techniques and arguments in the afternoon.
The highly anticipated Liberty Debates Championship ‘Mahasangram 2016’ kicked off on 2nd April, 2016 at King’s College, Babarmahal. A total of 34 teams participated in either English or Nepali categories. There was an orientation session before a two day championship of a total of 9 parallel sessions which were conducted in two separate rounds where debaters put forward their arguments for and against the motion. Then a final of the highest scoring teams.
Examples of the topics included, ‘This house would remove government monopoly in the energy market of Nepal’; ‘This house would abolish the policy of permanent tenure for civil servants and introduce ‘hire and fire’ policy in Nepal’; ‘This house regrets the trend of selfies’ and ‘This house regrets the trend of gender-specific professions’.
Outputs and impacts. Over 500 students involved with 136 debating in 34 teams.