Launch of the World of Debates Program

The "World of Debates" program, organized by Al Dana Girls Center under the umbrella of the Ministry of Sports and Youth in cooperation with the Qatar Debate Center, was launched at the headquarters of the Qatar Debate Center "Students' Forum" from September 15-19. This program targeted girls aged 15-19, and was presented by a select group of emerging Qatari trainers in the field of debates. The emerging trainer and debater / Safiya Salah Al Hamad stated that this program is based on introducing the nature of debates and their basics and targets high school girls as they are most in need of knowing the basics of debates and raising awareness of their importance and how to present them and how to make them strong debaters. She also praised the cooperation between Al Dana Center and the Qatar Debate Center for providing this opportunity. As for the emerging trainer and debater / Noura Al Dosari, she spoke about the importance of these initiatives and how to choose texts, and indicated that the program focuses on teaching girls and how to present their opinions and ideas and benefit from the exchange of opinions. She discussed how parents can raise their children's grades and academic achievement. The emerging trainer and debater, Sarah Al-Naama, spoke about how to build a complete position for the pro- or anti-team on a specific topic, how to identify the problem and the solution, and reach results in the debate. She explained that they tried to develop and activate the "debate" aspect among girls, methods of analysis and its dimensions, and how girls can participate in this aspect and present their ideas and suggestions. The "World of Debates" program includes introducing debates as a form of discourse, which is a rhetorical confrontation between two or more people on a specific issue at a specific time. These debates benefit participants in several areas, most notably enhancing self-confidence, acquiring new knowledge, developing higher-order thinking skills, encouraging teamwork, in addition to developing the ability to build and present a discourse. According to the prepared plan, the program’s activities extend to five days. The first day included the program plan, introducing debates and the roles of speakers, in addition to learning how to build the debate platform. The second day included how to determine the burden of proof and form an argument. The third day was about learning refutation and what a contradiction is. The fourth day included training skills to use the previous skills. The fifth day was a “championship” between the debaters.