Students have the last word at public speaking contest
TWO LORETO Secondary School students will represent Wexford at the regional Soroptimist Ireland public speaking competition, after they took the top prizes at the local competition.
22 girls from seven schools across the county competed and the standard of entries was very high, according to Mary Kerr, Presidents of the Wexford branch of Soroptimist Ireland.
The students spoke on a variety of topics focusing on Human Rights, Health, Environment, Democracy, Empowerment of women, Education, and Friendship and Volunteering.
The winners of the competition were Roisin O’Sulilvan and Krishna Ramesh.
Roisin’s chosen topic was Education, with the title of ‘With guns you can kill terrorists; with education you can kill terrorism’.
Krishna’s topic was Empowerment of women, and her speech focused on the Thomas Edison quote, ‘If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves’.
Both girls will now compete at a regional competition in Bray in January and, if successful, will progress to the national final in March 2018.
Ms. Kerr pointed out that competition had been running as a North-South initiative since 1981. The competition, she said, had expanded in Wexford over the past few years as more schools have got involved.
‘The aims of the competition are to encourage girls by providing a forum for speaking in public, thus assisting with communication skills, effective presentation and self-confidence. We had a very good mix of topics and wish the girls the best of luck in January.’