Bronze for Debattliden!

In late January, Mattliden’s Debate Club participated in the Finnish National Schools Debating Championships 2023 at the English School in Helsinki.

In the competition, 12 different teams from schools all over Finland came together to debate and compete over a prize sum of 1500€. The competition consisted of two parts; first, all teams debated in four preliminary rounds and then the best went on to debate in the semi-finals and subsequently the finals. 

A lot of hard work went into gearing up for the battle. The week before the competition was marked by fierce preparation when the Mattliden team spent many long evenings preparing their speeches for the competition. 

Mattliden’s debate team was the only one to win all four preliminary rounds, a very big achievement, especially considering that none of the team members had participated in a debating competition before. Mattliden’s debate team debated valiantly against SYK (Team 2) in the semifinals, but alas, in vain. SYK (Team 2) went on to the finals and won the whole competition. 

Overall, the event was very well organised and more than just enjoyable. The atmosphere was supportive and welcoming, which meant that many new friends were made. Our debating team went home tired, but still very proud of the achievements they had accomplished during the weekend. 

Such a big feat would not have been possible without a lot of help, though. We would like to thank Anna Martikainen for supporting us and coming to spectate the competition, as well as the school for making the opportunity possible. 

And also a big thank you to Christine Stevenage from SYK, from whom the idea to participate originally came, and to everyone over at the SYK Debate Club for their support.

And finally, thank you to everyone on our great debate team, all of whom really outdid themselves during the competition.

If this experience sounded at all appealing to you, we strongly recommend that you join our debate club!

Daniel Björklund and Elias Ånäs