Moreover, the UDEP is also aiming to help establish and build debate organizations in various high schools in the region. Support for and supervision of these budding debate clubs is all for preparing our Zamboangueño students as they try to make a mark on the debating sphere locally, regionally, and even nationally. Joint trainings, more debate materials, and workshops are all in the aim of nurturing the region’s bright minds to be more competitive in the Mindanao and the Philippine debating circle. In the past, the Union has helped hone debate organizations in schools like Ateneo de Zamboanga High School and encourage schools like Ferndale and Chong Hua to join local debate competitions for high school students. Through our UDEP, we are planting the seeds of debate excellence in the city. Furthermore, ADU tries to personify one of the advocacies of the Ateneo community: social awareness and participation. Like the Ateneo de Zamboanga University who believes in success as a continuous journey rather than as a goal, the Ateneo Debate Union is also in pursuit of constantly improving our Debate Education Program. Not only do we believe in the importance of public speaking skills in these students’ education and future careers, we have strong convictions and faith in the youth’s capacity to bring about guided opinions, novel ideas, and innovative solutions if we can only hone their interest and awareness early on. Not only do we believe in their potentials as debaters; we strongly see them a 45s leaders in their own communities. The Union is trying to contribute to their growth by creating a culture of academic discourse through our Union Debate Education Program.
2. Union Debate Camp
In conjunction with the Union Debate Education Program, ADU is set on organizing a Union Debate Camp. The Union Debate Camp will primarily cater, though not limited to, our UDEP clientele as a toast to the camaraderie amongst the schools and to the promising future of debate in the Zamboanga Peninsula. Set to happen during the second semester of the school year, this Camp tries to tie a ribbon on the efforts of the students for the first semester. Patterned after the IDEA Youth Forum, the ADU will be bringing high-caliber learning to our kids. We are planning to include lectures on pressing issues such as environment and sustainability, politics and governance, and human rights to be given by esteemed professors and authorities in these issues. Analysis or synthesis of these issues and how the students could form and express their views will be given by both alumni and current members of the Union. Issues such as these, rarely discussed inside the classroom, are instrumental to the shaping of young leaders. We believe that this truly is the Ateneo ideal of excellence in the flesh. We also plan to include discussions of specific issues that are plaguing Mindanao such as the energy crisis and peace and security. This Mindanao flavor tries to inculcate the identity of a Mindanaon—one that has a mind to conceive and a heart to act. Such effort is in line with smoldering the Ateneo de Zamboanga’s brand of excellence on the region. The Camp is also set to culminate during the beginning of the Ateneo Fiesta, offering the Ateneo hospitality as well as the Ateneo excellence. Rarely do we see an organization in the city or in the Ateneo campus strive to give students a taste of an internationally-acclaimed program such as the IDEA Youth Forum. We believe that not only should the University be able to be a witness to the Camp but it should also be able to continuously fuel its students’ initiatives to always try to challenge themselves and to reach greater and only even greater heights. However ambitious the challenge may be, the Ateneo Debate Union shall be prepared to give the best Debate Camp it can give—doing more in service of our Ateneo and Zamboanga communities.
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