Hello everyone,
We are pleased to congratulate our Afghan female debaters, Aysha Wazir and Helala Ghanizada, on receiving the 2nd Speaker Award and 16th Speaker Award, respectively, among 60 international debaters from the United States, Canada, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the Public Forum Novice Division at the Harvard Debate UK–TOC International Tournament, held on October 23–25, 2026: https://www.tabroom.com/index/tourn/results/event_results.mhtml?tourn_id=40334&result_id=469080
Together, they also ranked 13th out of 30 teams in the Public Forum Novice Division – an outstanding achievement that exceeded our expectations.
We are deeply proud of their outstanding performance. We believe that, given the opportunity, they can stand alongside their peers worldwide and bring pride to Afghanistan.
Our goal is to empower Afghan female students to participate and raise their voices on the global stage by providing opportunities to compete in prestigious international debate tournaments. This visibility can help attract worldwide support for Afghan women’s education, with a practical emphasis on expanding online learning in the near term.
We would like to express our gratitude to the Harvard Debate Council and the University of Kentucky’s Tournament of Champions (TOC) for their kind support in waiving participation fees for our Afghan female debate teams for the Harvard Debate UK–TOC International Tournaments 2026–2027.
We would also like to extend our sincere thanks to Keerti V. Joshi from Team Canada Debate (2025–2027) for his support in training our teams.
About Team Canada Debate:
– 5x World Champions of the WSDC; most recent win: 2026 in Kenya
– 4x World Runners-up
We would like to thank the coaches at Vietnam Public Forum Academy for their continued support and ongoing involvement in training the Afghan girls since November 2024.
Finally, we thank all remaining participants for their efforts during the training period. You will continue to receive training and may be selected for the upcoming Harvard Debate UK–TOC International Tournaments in November 2026 and January 2027.
Sincerely,
Empowering Afghan Girls & Young Women Through Debate
(An initiative of Vietnam Public Forum Academy)
and Afghans for Progressive Thinking (APT)
