MUNDO Debates

Sprouted by culture, entwined by debate.

MUNDO is an international online debate championship for youth between the ages of 13 to 20 years old, with discussions based on the UN SDGs. Being a youth-led initiative, it is a place for youth to share their voices, building interactions between the diverse cultures of the world, and stimulating connections among young people while searching for viable solutions to global challenges.

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Web presence

2020

Established

30

Children

10

Countries

Target group

All

Updated

October 2020

“Debate empowers, but just like laws, we need to transform arguments into action. ”

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

Being debate enthusiasts, we, two Youth Ambassadors, wanted to provide a space for youth to share their voices through multicultural conversations during this time of instability. Through intercultural debate, we hoped to bring discussions and connections together to inspire youth to seek solutions to global challenges and take concrete actions.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

MUNDO organizes debate championships online, but we hope to expand it to MUNs. Our discussions are based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, meaning they are focused on solution building. MUNDO focuses on youth between the age of 13-20.
Young people can sometimes have intercultural dialogue aplenty but lack a deeper connection. Our goal, therefore, is not only to provide youth with the opportunity to share their perspectives and understand others but also to defend their opinions through concrete argumentation, building their elocution, and stimulating critical thinking. Participants are placed in teams with youth from around the world, with whom they co-operate during the debates, giving them a holistic experience. The championship follows an adaptation of the World School Debate Format. And debating a motion related to an actual global challenge, Proposition and Opposition compete. The teams bring their discussion into action in the form of small projects. We debate to create!

How has it been spreading?

During these uncertain times of COVID-19, organizing physical debates (the form which many believe is more effective) is a far-off dream, but that is nothing to stop the spread of something so vital to the expression of youth and student’s voice. Social media plays a large role in the life of many millennials, and so does it in the life of MUNDO debates. We have been able to reach out to people on every continent, except Antarctica. Youth who have participated, pass on our goal and their experience to others, and the spread of our innovation has been along the line of youth with a global interest. We may not have a large number of users yet, but what we do have is, users with true passion.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Interested educators can contact us for a step by step guideline for implementing MUNDO debates. We can help connect schools globally, connecting with international participants. Check out the quick instructions at the bottom for implementing the championship immediately in your school or community. We can help you at any point and encourage you to offer this great opportunity to your students.

Implementation steps

Find a group of enthusiastic students

This group can be in charge of connecting with international participants, moderating the debates, organizing study guides, offering speaking abilities workshops, and much more. Firstly, you might want to establish positions and roles, getting the best out of each organizer.

Start structuring your debates

Your debates should have specific speeches’ times and organized speaking orders. You can introduce information points and many more debate attributes. But make sure that all the rules are clear for every participant. Here, you can check the official MUNDO Debates’ guidelines.

Connect and share

You can use platforms such as the HundrED community to share your debate championship with students from all around the world. MUNDO also offers a partnership between international groups of young people who are passionate about debating. You can decide if you would like to be the organizer group of a championship or the visitants who are going to be attending a debate held by other institutions. We are happy to encourage connections between enthusiastic young people from all around the world. Contact us to be paired up with another group of students that is ready to debate!

Finding judges

The most important thing is to have someone that will be able to work together with the participants, giving feedback so they can improve after each debate.

Organize and divide to unite

Try not to have close friends on the same team. We aim to encourage new connections between the participants placing a balanced number of people from different countries in the same group. In the MUNDO Championship, we like to have 5 members per team.

Planning your first discussion

Choose a motion with the help of everyone. We suggest you offer some options, letting them decide through a voting system. We highly recommend debating topics related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This way, you can have discussions about actual global challenges. Reinforce the need to search for viable solutions for these issues. It is interesting to offer study guides to the participants so all the people can start from an equal and basic level of understanding. The organizing team can work together on producing this material. Or you can also check some of our ready study guides here!

It is also necessary to define which teams are going to be Proposition or Opposition during the first discussion. The positions should vary after each round.

Offer a communication space

In the MUNDO Championship, we have Slack channels where the teammates can get to know each other, talk, and prepare for upcoming debates. You can decide which platform is better. But remember to make sure that the participants have an easy to use and comfortable space to establish communication. We recommend offering the participants as much freedom in their organizing process as possible. It is good, however, to have a prepared team to answer questions and help them if needed.

Getting ready and comfortable

The mock run can help them understand the basic structure of the debates and also to get a little more comfortable around their teammates and organizers of the event.

It is time to debate!

Gather two teams, two moderators (if possible), a staff member, and a judge. Present the motion before starting, and then it is time to debate! After your first debate, try to incorporate a small project together. It should be related to the topic and the solutions discussed. Make it easy and impactful. Now you are good to go! You can do as many rounds as you want. In case you have any doubts, feel free to contact us.

Roles and positions in the organization

MODERATORS: Responsible for moderating the debates. They will need to keep track of speeches’ lengths, announce the next speakers, and manage the delivery of information points. Depending on language barriers, they can also be responsible for doing summaries of some speeches so all the participants can follow the discussion.

JUDGES: Responsible for judging the debates. They will need to watch the full-on discussions, paying attention to details. After each debate, the judges give feedback to the participants so they can improve for the next rounds. They also determine the winning teams after a discussion. It is good to have some fixed criteria for judging. You can find the MUNDO spreadsheet with some base for evaluation here.

JOURNALISTS: Responsible for recording, taking pictures, and handling social media pages for the event.

STAFF: Responsible for the technical part of the championship. They should schedule the meetings, create the links, and manage the participants. They are also in charge of sending emails and notices.