TRINITY COLLEGE’S LARGEST society has set up a subcommittee to encourage people of colour and ethnic minorities in the university to get more involved in debate.
The University Philosophical Society, commonly known as ‘The Phil’, is one of the world’s oldest debating society. A new sub-committee of the society, The Udoma, will launch this evening with a public speaking competition on issues of race, discrimination, diversity, culture and women of colour in the public sphere.
The sub-committee was named after Egbert Udo Odoma, who served as president of The Phil at Trinity College in 1942 and later went on to be Chief Justice of Uganda.
Francine Ibeh, chairperson of The Udoma and a second year student of Law and German at TCD, told The Journal that there has been “a lack of representation of people of colour and ethnic minorities, not just in The Phil but the debating society at large”.
Ibeh has been involved in debating since she was 11-years-old, but said growing up she was often the only person of colour in debates and her secondary school was also the only public school in the top competitions.
“There should be more emphasis on debate and public speaking at a young age and it shouldn’t just be something that’s associated with a certain class of person or certain socio-economic background,” she said.
“It takes a lot of courage to enter into these spaces. I think it seems inaccessible to people of colour and ethnic minorities because they mostly attend public schools and they know their peers in university have so much more experience than they do, so they don’t have that confidence.”
First-year Human Health and Disease student Aeva-May Conway, who is also a member of The Udoma credits Ibeh as the “rallying force” behind the new sub-committee.
“For me personally, I was never really part of debating in secondary school but I took an interest in The Phil and there is such a nice, open, chill environment. I think it’s important for people of colour to be involved, we have issues we need to speak about and the kind of training you get in debating and public speaking from The Phil is such a great opportunity to build up confidence.”
She said there has been a lot of interest in this evening’s competition, which will have eight speakers, with each talking for a maximum of five minutes.
“We gave then quotes to choose to base their speeches on, so one is from Michelle Obama and another is from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and it can take any form like a spoken word commentary or poetry – but it’s not a debate,” she said.
The subcommittee is planning a range of other events for the year, including panel discussions, special guest speakers and mixer events like movie nights so students can come together and share their experiences.
The launch and competition takes place the the Graduates Memorial Building at 7.30pm.
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