Media Release
Kuwait, May 25: Indian Muslim Welfare Association (IMWA) recently conducted its annual educational meet EDUMEET 2018 in the auditorium of Salmiya Indian Model School, Salmiya. This was the eighth educational meet organized by IMWA, to promote harmony and spirit of common brotherhood amongst the people of India in Kuwait.
With so much of diversity in one nation, a need is envisaged to discuss and debate through young minds, the core issues, essential to preserve the idea of unique India, in the world. EDUMEET is one step forward in this direction. It is an opportunity for Indian students to demonstrate their talents in the arena of public speaking and essay writing. Through this meet, IMWA aims to provide an opportunity for Indian students to debate, discuss, agree and disagree through logic, facts, and learn to discuss even the most difficult issues with rational thinking, with respect to the point of view of others in an atmosphere of brotherhood, humility and grace.
This year’s EDUMEET 2018, comprised of essay writing competition and inter-school debate. The convener of the programme was Mohammed Khalid, under whose aegis and guidance, the programme content and flow was charted out and schools were advised to sponsor the student debaters and essay writers. The programme was jointly hosted by Israa Naeem and Osama Jawaid. The event started with the recitation of holy Quran by Yusuf Asad Khan of Class VI.
The programme had two segments – essay writing and debate. Creative writing is an important tool in day to day life. Realizing its importance, IMWA chose topics of relevance. The participants were divided into three groups comprising of class VII and VIII as group A, class IX and X as group B and classes XI and XII as group C. Each group was given a separate topic with a time limit of 30 minutes to write a maximum of 250 words. The topics for the essay were:
Group A – Most memorable moment of my life
Group B – My role model
Group C – My career choice
A panel of six English teachers drawn from various Indian schools assessed and marked the students.
This year, IMWA chose to debate 'Has the current state of democracy created a unified and progressive India? A total of nine teams participated in the debate with 18 students, nine on either side spoke for the motion and against the motion. Moli Divakaran, Rana Khan, Dr Sabiha Bilgrami and Anil Lobo formed the panel of four judges who evaluated the performance of the participants. Moli Divakaran is an educationist with 25 years of teaching experience in Middle East and Canada. Currently she is a lecturer at Box Hill College. She is also a certified therapeutic teacher and a doctoral researcher in higher education. Rana Khan, is a teaching faculty at Algonquin College. She is also an active member of TESOL, Kuwait – an affiliate of TESOL International, a US based organisation of English language teachers and professionals. She is also a member of Conferences Professional Council of TESOL International, USA. Dr Sabiha Bilgrami is a teaching faculty at Kuwait University and founder of Golden Era Club. She was awarded the Glory of India award in 2011. Anil Lobo is a member of Toastmaster. He has been actively involved in imparting skills of public speaking in many Indian Schools. Mohammad Zahid was the online moderator processing the evaluation data as entered by the judges.
Sanjeev Saklani, attache, Education at the Indian Embassy graced the occasion and was full of appreciation of IMWA’s efforts to host such events for the benefit of children of Indian community in Kuwait. Sanjeev Saklani and Muzammil Malik, assisted by president, Jawaid Anwar gave away the prizes to the winners and tokens of appreciation to the debate judges and appraisers of essay writers.
The results of both essay writing and debate competition were declared immediately after the event. They results are as follows:
Debate school trophy
Indian Community School (ICSK), Khaitan
Debate winners
Winner: Guru Krithika Sakthivel, Gulf Indian School
First runner up: AyishaWafiyah, ICSK, Khaitan
Second runner up: Alpha Susan Jaimon, ICSK, Khaitan
Essay writing competition
Group A
First prize – Aadya Kalarikkal, India International School
Second prize – Mohammad A Bhatia, Indian Educational School
IMWA talent – Faiza Hanif, ICSK, Khaitan
Group B
First prize – Sabah Fayez, ICSK, Amman Branch
Second prize – Maushika Rita Fernandez, Indian Educational School
IMWA talent – Faiza Hanif, ICSK, Khaitan
Group C
First prize – Sara Khan, Fahaheel Al Wataniya Private School (FAIPS)
Second prize – Aisha Wafiya, Indian Community School, Khaitan
IMWA talent – Sumayya Parveen Gesawat, ICSK, senior
The president of FIMA, Karim Irfan and Jawaid Anwar, president of IMWA in their speeches mentioned that the debate competition is very useful for preparing students for their future career. They appreciated the efforts of IMWA executive council members for providing an environment where outside-the-classroom experience contributes to knowledge acquisition and application, intra-personal development and competence and hoped that the students will take advantage of the opportunities to experience personal growth and broaden their educational and social goals.