Bahrain Regional Round
The Bahrain Regional Round of the competition took place at St Christopher’s on 29 and 30 January. The School Hall was packed as 300 students from 12 schools took part, the largest entry in the three years of the competition in Bahrain.
The competition was compered by ‘Ay Yo Scholars!’ Burch Wan, who managed to generate a great atmosphere of excitement. He was joined by the founder of the World Scholar’s Cup, Daniel Berdichevsky, who added to the frenzy by throwing fluffy alpacas into the audience! After the introductions, the competition began in earnest with the debates and collaborative writing elements. The debate motions were great fun, but also contained some thought-provoking ideas such as whether Bahrain should accept more Syrian refugees. The collaborative writing allowed students to choose their theme from a set of 6, one of which was whether democracy is the best way to save a failed state. The appropriately named ‘Scholar’s Challenge’ completed the first day competitions.
On Saturday morning, the hall was packed again for the Scholar’s Bowl, a multimedia competition in which each team has to select answers in a short period of time. At half-time, each student received their own fluffy alpaca, the mascot of the World Scholar’s Cup. In the afternoon, the best debaters were selected for a public ‘Debate Showcase’ which generated a lot of interest as the topic was about the imperfections in Bahrain and how best to solve them! Volunteers then put themselves forward for the Scholar’s Talent Show, some highlights being Zacharia Shamma’s magic show and Tanuj Oundhakar’s piano and singing performance.
The finale of our event was the prize ceremony. St Christopher’s students were strongly represented in each of the 4 competition elements and came out on top in several overall categories, including:
| Winning Team, Senior Division | Adam Wilson, Alexia Skrypnyk and Thomas Griffith |
| Top Student, Senior Division | Adam Wilson |
| Second Place Team, Junior Division | Luke Bennett, Eli Saghbini and Kamilah El Kanfoudi |
| Third Place Team, Junior Division | Ahsab Chowdhury, Rayyan Ali and Taha Ansari |
| Top Student, Junior Division | Luke Bennett |
| 2nd Place Student, Junior Division | Rayyan Ali |
| Junior Team Challenge | Ahsab Chowdhury, Rayyan Ali and Taha Ansari |
| Junior Debate | Iman Asif, Laura Beck and Joseph Anhorn |
| Senior Debate and Challenge | Adam Wilson, Alexia Skrypnyk and Thomas Griffith |
| Junior Individual Debate | Joseph Anhorn |
| Junior Individual Challenge | Rayyan Ali |
| 2nd Junior Writing | Chaitanya Prakash |
Our students now have the opportunity to go to the Global Round of the competition, which is held in Bangkok in June this year.
