Kampala, UGANDA – We kicked off the 2022 University Debate Nationals yesterday. This is a 5-day tournament for students from universities from Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania set to run from 25th to 29th November, 2022. This annual tournament is organized by Open Space Center in partnership with the Uganda National NGO Forum, USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, and Crossing Borders, and is currently taking place at the Eureka Place Hotel, Ntinda-Kampala. This is the biggest annual debate gathering that brings together over 200 students from universities from across East Africa to take part in engaging thought-provoking discussions on topical issues in their countries.

Day one involved a presentation and panel discussion on the overall theme of the debate, which this year is, “Uganda at 60: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”. The essence of the panel discussion, which featured youth in leadership, health practitioners, young politicians, entrepreneurs, and a young female lawyer and feminist, was to provide context to the theme, share experiences as young active citizens, and get a cross-section of views from young Ugandans.

Later on in the day, the participants were taken through parallel training sessions, for both judges, and the different categories of debaters i.e. novices, intermediates, and experts. This refresher served to establish rules and standardize the debate tournament. Following this was a practice round of debate in a model debate format that set the pace the debate.