Ready for action: Majid al-Ansari, Khalid al-Khulaifi and Safa Kashaf with their team coach Madeline Hall

As they prepare to travel to Scotland to compete in the World Schools Debating Championship, members of Team Qatar have expressed their excitement ahead of the event, describing what they hope to gain from the experience.
Five students will be travelling to the competition, and Gulf Times spoke to three of them to find out how being involved in debating has helped them, and why they are looking forward to representing Qatar next week.
Safa Kashaf, 15, who attends Park House English School, explained that she has noticed a significant improvement in her studies and English language skills since taking up debating.
Hoping to pursue a career in law, she said that her abilities to think on her feet and to argue coherently have improved considerably.
“Debating has opened my mind up to a lot of new things,” she said, noting that she has learnt a lot about events occurring around the world.
Kashaf also highlighted the competitive nature of the debates, saying that she enjoys the feeling of presenting successful arguments and defeating the opposition.
“I think QatarDebate is a really good programme – it opens up so many opportunities,” she added.
Teammate Majid al-Ansari, who also studies at Park House, expressed his excitement ahead of the event.
The 15-year-old said he was looking forward to meeting other students from all over the world.
Although he said that he was not expecting to win the tournament, where they will be competing against teams with extremely rich traditions of debate, al-Ansari said he felt it is important to be part of debating in Qatar and to develop the tradition here.
“I expect that we are going to get much better, and be better prepared for other tournaments in the future,” he said.
“It’s important to be a member of something and to show that other people can join it,” he said, talking about his school peers who have also become interested in debate.
Debating has helped al-Ansari overcome stage fright, and he said that the knowledge he has gained through research has helped him learn a great deal of new information.
He said that his experience in a recent competition in Slovenia indicated that people do not have preconceived notions of Team Qatar.
Al-Ansari said that he was pleasantly surprised to find that people were very accepting of the Qatari culture, adding: “People were accepting of our culture, and they were interested in it – I was surprised that they did not look at us stereotypically, but I was also glad.”
Khalid al-Khulaifi, 16, who studies at Doha Independent School for Boys, expressed confidence in the team’s abilities, and said that he hopes to win the tournament.
He said the team has practiced for around six hours daily, and this amount of practice should stand them in good stead when they compete.
Speaking about past experience, he said that the students have been tested by having to compete in debates on subjects to which they have not been exposed during their young careers.
For instance, a number of debates in the recent competition in Slovenia focused on issues related to democracy, something al-Khulaifi said was challenging and helped develop the team’s versatility and skills.
And he hopes that debate in Qatar continues to develop, and that fellow students get involved in an activity that has helped him and his peers in a number of ways. – Peter Townson