BEHIND THE OUTREACH
How We Got Here
by Shanmugesh Raja
Speech and Debate in the United States has always been prevalent; proving useful in building speaking skills and confidence in many high school kids. Fortunately, majority of the schools in the United States have the resources and the opportunity to give students the skill of speaking. Therefore, whenever my family and I went on our yearly trips, I noticed that some of the schools near my grandparents didn't have such programs. I then took the opportunity to conduct a speech tournament for some local schools. And it was a genuine success for the first year of implementation. And we hope to keep continuing for years to come.
SHANMUGESH RAJA
Behind the Idea of S and T Outreach
Currently, I am an 11th grader at Monte Vista High School in Danville, California. I am a large part of the speech and debate program in my school and believe strongly in its benefits. Beyond the scope of simply bringing home a trophy, speech and debate foster important life skills such as confidence, understanding different perspectives with an open mind, and often talking about different topics in the world, improving one's experience of varied and complex topics. These are valuable assets that are unfortunately unavailable to many kids in schools throughout India. Thus, as a start, I wanted to create a trust after my grandparents and start conducting speech tournaments. These tournaments are to encourage kids to participate in speech and debate and for students whose schools do not have the resources to hold such a program for them. 2019 will be the third year for S and T and the tournament will be held in Tuticorin, India on June 29. I hope to keep continuing this in the future.
