An action packed week was organised in June by Evans Exaud and the Liberty Sparks team.
The week started with Media training with 200 applicants for 30 places. 20 were selected because of their radio and TV experience and 11 were journalists and students of journalism who have shown interest in working with Liberty Sparks to advance a liberty agenda through articles etc.
The training facilitators were Prof. Brian Baugus from Regent University USA, Rejoice Ngwenya from COMALISO- Zimbabwe, Andy Eyschen From Language for Liberty- Malaysia, Andreas Jurgens from Freedom Today, Germany and Advocate Deogratius Bwile. Two were broadcast direct from Malaysia and German.
Concentrated note taking at the Media Training!
Topics included an Introduction to Classical Liberalism, A Liberal Framework for Public Policy Innovation, Internet Freedom and Media Censorship.
The next event was a2 day Young Scholars Colloquium with 30 places and 120 applicants. Those chosen came from Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. 12 people were selected as the winner of the 2018 Free Market Great Debate,10 students where top leaders with Students for Liberty Africa, and 10 were selected from a previous program initiated by Liberty Sparks. So everyone had already shown an interest in the ideas and was keen to learn more.
Brian and Rejoice introduced these Young Scholars to liberty, social thinking and constitutional government. All participants had received readings well before the event to cover the main topics which were Entrepreneurship & Development, Hayek’s Theory Of Knowledge, Innovation & Economic growth, Christian Social teaching and Government and Rule Of Law.
The Uhuru Conference was held on the following day with the theme of “Entrepreneurship and Leadership: Hope for Tanzania.”
600 applied for this event but only 250 could be accepted due to budget constraints, with 197 eventually attending which was the highest number Liberty Sparks has experienced for any of its previous events. The screening process ensured strong candidates with leadership experience and all received one of the mini-libraries on CD.
Conference speakers included Professor Brian Baugus, Rejoice Ngwenya and Evans Exaud, CEO of Liberty Sparks, who made the opening remarks. Zakayo Solomon, Eric Crispin and Dr Nelsen Amar took part in a panel discussion moderated by Iga Leonard from Uganda. After lunch the winners of the Liberty Sparks 2018 Great Debate, (funded by NFS), who had already attended the Young Scholars Colloquium, took part in a debate on free markets.
Speakers were also interviewed by different media include ITV, Channel Ten, Nipashe and Mwananchi.
Uhuru Gala dinner took place after the conference. Business men and women and some current and potential partners were included with key stakeholders from different companies invited to learn about the work done by Liberty sparks. This is the first time Liberty Sparks had been able to hold an event of this nature with 110 attending the event. It began with everyone meeting new friends through “speed networking” and was followed by the dinner. Brian Baugus used a creative way to explain the power of free markets to the audience by showing Russ Roberts’ animated poem “It’s A Wonderful Loaf”.
On the final day there was a gathering of more than 60 business men and women who had taken part in on line training for entrepreneurs provided by Liberty Sparks and developed by Brian Baugus with some of his pupils at Regent University in the USA. Brian and Evans (translating into Swahili) spent time with them learning about the barriers facing businesses in Tanzania and were thanked by the entrepreneurs for the course which was bringing them hope.
60 for intensive training.
347 involved in conferences etc.
200 CDS were given out.
10 journalists were trained.
