Written by Shanille Martin, Head of Writopia Lab’s Debate Program
Writopia alongside our partner’s Debate Spaces hosted another one of our international debate tournaments on Saturday, February 1st, 2025. Rounds began at 8 AM Eastern Time. Debaters argued topics like whether voting should be mandatory, the sale of unhealthy foods to minors, public service, and freedom of speech. Writopia aims to combine our methodology of bringing joy and fun to the arts with the competitiveness of debate. Our debaters learn to have fun with the form but to challenge themselves and push past their fears.
What makes this an international tournament? Our tournaments feature teams from all over the world! Our debaters compete against debaters from cities and countries like Prague, Athens, Nairobi, Manila, India, and more.
Writopia had many first-time debaters participate in this tournament, including Grace Browning, Yasmina Zaidi, Veer Belani, and Sanah Sabharwal, who all currently attend novice debate workshops at Writopia. Sanah received one of the highest scores of all the new debaters, a super impressive feat!
Writopia debater Nirali Ydendra was among the top speakers with one of the highest scores in the tournament. Nirali was joined by her teammates Nathalie Rostek-Weretka and Ethan Atallah.
One of our teams, Writopia Nation, placed in the top teams with only one loss out of 3 rounds. Their team consisted of Jonathan Zhang, Sanah Sabharwal, Veer Belani, and Ayana Alamgir.
Seasoned debaters Iman Abdhur Rahman and Hudson Antoniewicz gave strong speeches in their rounds and have been appointed top speakers in other tournaments.
We are so proud of all our debaters! We hope this experience will help them learn their strengths as speakers and leaders.
Stay tuned for our next tournament on March 15th, 2025!