Engage 1000 Bulgarian students in public speaking

A new year has started with in-person events, and the BEST community is becoming stronger than ever. 

We even formulated our motto: “Once BESTie, forever BESTie'' and that's the truth, we always support each other. 

Thanks to your support, our third Summer Slam showcase in September managed to fundraise 1356.35 $. The sum ensured that we could continue to run our Student Leader training seminar in person at the beginning of October. Live events are much more engaging, and all of the participants were excited and motivated to keep on with the hard work throughout the academic year. 

At the end of September and before the Student Leader training, a second year multi-day Coach Training was organized and was held in person in Sofia. There were 32 participants – new and returning Bulgarian teachers, new and returning Fulbright American English Teachers, and Bulgarian high school students. They participated in a variety of lectures and presentations about the competition policies and rules, piece selection, debate fundamentals, fundraising techniques and tactics to create and lead a successful BEST team in their schools. As a tradition, during the training, coaches were treated to live performances by former and current BEST competitors in the Duo, Prose, and Poetry categories. In addition to student performances, the event also featured prominent guest speakers including AUBG professor Dr. Olga Nikolova, whose workshop on Poetry Interpretation gave coaches hands-on opportunities to analyze and perform poems, and even compete in a mini competition themselves. 

After the workshop, Professor Olga Nikolova said: “I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. BEST coaches are amazing and talented”. All of the coaches were impressed by her class too, and they shared positive feedback and sent “thank you” emails afterwards. 

The Fulbright Bulgaria Commission suported us immensely with a grant that helped us cover all of the expenses for Coach Training. 

Fall West Regional Tournament was the first in-person regional tournament since 2019. We had a record number of participants compared to the online participation – 226 students competed in Blagoevgrad, FLHS “Lyudmil Stoyanov” on 12-13 Nov 2022. The Fall East Regional Tournament was in Burgas, “Geo Milev” FLS and was held between Nov 26-27, entirely in person. 

Nearly 56 judges participated in the Fall West Tournament. They supported the competition with feedback for students from 19 schools from the western part of the country. 

At Fall East, we had 50 judges and participants from 19 schools from the eastern part of Bulgaria. 

During the tournament, we had Student Leader training sessions, Q+A Sessions regarding rules and volunteer meetings to ensure the smooth and successful organization of the live events. 

At both tournaments we had a record number of students participating in the debate category. We believe this is a result of the second year Debate Summer Camp, which was held in August and led by the experienced Debate Coordinator – Julia L. with the help of Tournament Policy Coordinator – Morgan R., both Fulbright Second year English Teaching Assistants. In terms of satisfaction rate, 80% of student participants noted that the preparation that they did for the tournament was very helpful, and that they will use the things they learned during the event in school.

Volunteer judge Maria B. said: “I have been waiting for the in-person events since 2019, and the students are becoming even more prepared. It looks like every new semester we may see better performances in all categories. That means that we all are doing a great job and I'm proud of all of you from the BEST management team, coaches and participants”.

Our Student Leader coordinators - Vili- An D. and Bilyana B. also shared some awesome posters created by Student Leaders and their teams to show their team spirit and excitement for the tournaments. 

We are happy to share with you the below pictures from our events. 

We thank you again for all your support and wish you a warm holiday season!

Links:

• https://bestfoundation.bg/support-best

Dear friends of BEST,

On April 16th and 17th BEST Foundation held its National Tournament for the 2021-2022 academic year in hybrid format. Participants, judges and volunteers gathered both at the AUBG campus in Blagoevgrad, as well as online. This was the first time since the start of the pandemic that most of the community members met in person! The national tournament is attended by any students who reached semifinals or finals in our regional tournaments, as well as the top six debate teams. We had over 200 young adults from all over Bulgaria participate in five categories: Original Oratory, Duo Interpretation, Prose Interpretation, Poetry Interpretation and World Schools Debate. Feedback and rankings were provided to the students by 60 volunteer judges who come from different educational and professional backgrounds and who dedicated their entire weekend for the event. The students, their coaches, judges and volunteers demonstrated extraordinary perseverance and flexibility under adverse circumstances, in addition to exemplary creativity, hard work, and talent.

Despite the removal of many Covid related restrictions across the nation, we at BEST decided to keep some measures such as implementing the green pass policy, as well as encouraging participants to wear masks indoors. Also each participation room had air purifiers and was disinfected regularly. These measures insured the health and safety of our community and no reported health issues.

We were extremely happy to finally meet the majority of our community in person, after what was a challenging period for us all. Ms. Rodel, Executive Director of Fulbright Bulgaria, who attended the competition as a volunteer judge, said: “I have been judging since 2015 and I think this year is especially powerful because we are in the midst of such adverse circumstances. It’s easy to feel discouraged and disappointed and to feel like nothing matters… But everytime I come, I see your performances, I hear your voices, I see you and think- this is incredible! Thank you for giving me this hit of hope!”

Students’ performances discussed issues and concepts important to them such as: art, love, sisterhood, sexual abuse, political awareness and more. We are proud to provide a platform for free expression where students feel safe and encouraged to talk about issues that matter to them. This year’s small team award was given to team PMG Sandanski Gotse Delchev and large team award to Lyudmil Stoyanov FLH in Blagoevgrad.

To be able to see top student performances live, you can register at the following link. The show will be on a Sunday so you can enjoy your brunch/dinner and be able to vote for your favorite performance by donating a small amount. Can't wait to see you there!

Thank you for your continuous support and we wish you a wonderful rest of your summer!