The 2010 IDEA Youth Forum will take place from July 22 to August 4, 2010 in the Province of Zeeland in the Netherlands. This event will be co-organized by International Debate Education Association (IDEA) and Zeeland’s Institute for Social and Cultural Development (Scoop), in cooperation with the municipalities of Middelburg and Vlissingen, the Hogeschool Zeeland and the Roosevelt Academy. Participants are expected to arrive to the venue on July 22, 2010 and depart on August 4.

The purpose of an IDEA Youth Forum is to bring together debaters and educators from around the world to develop their debating and public speaking skills. The Forum includes series of classes about debating skills and about content of the debate topics. It also includes three debate tournaments; the largest one of them being the IDEA Karl Popper Debate Championship, a competition of national teams.

During debate training sessions, participants are divided into small groups in order to engage in personalized learning process, which allows for cultural exchange amongst diverse groups of students, teachers and educators. The IDEA Youth Forum is a large scale event, which involves a large number of participants – on average it attracts 250 high school students and coaches from over 30 different countries from around the world. The students are taught by a great variety of skilled professionals; last year they came from 18 countries of the world, and 5 different continents.

The IDEA Youth Forum starts with a Karl Popper Debate Championship, at the end of which two best national teams meet in the public Grand Final Round in a prominent location (e.g. House of Parliament of a host country). The second competition is the IDEA Karl Popper Mixed-Teams Debate Tournament is a culmination of the week-long workshops where students prepare in mixed international teams. The last one is the British Parliamentary Tournament, which is a culmination of the British Parliamentary Track, to facilitate the transition from high school to university debating. We also offer workshops for beginner debaters, coaches and debaters who need to improve their English language capacity.

The glue that holds all these pieces together are the inter-cultural activities like the country exhibitions and shows, cultural evenings and informal gatherings while playing guitar, games and sports. In addition, the host organization arranges for cultural visits to famous sites, providing an opportunity for all participants to learn about the host country’s tradition, history and culture.