The ESU is an independent non-political, educational charity with members throughout the United Kingdom and the United States and branches in more than 50 countries worldwide. Its purpose is to promote international understanding and human development through the widening use of the English language. For millions of people throughout the world it is the key to personal achievement in business, politics, technology and the arts. The English language plays a vital role in contributing towards international cooperation and friendship.
The ESU's approach is to work through people-to-people exchanges, scholarships, public speaking and music competitions, conferences, and other national and international programmes made possible by the generosity of its members worldwide.
The Argentina chapter of the ESU,founded in 1993, has managed to grow year after year, not only in numbers but also in the hard work and new programmes put in place for the benefit of its members and friends. They include:
Annual Public Speaking Competition, the winner and runner-up travel to London for the World finals; Scholarship for the Secondary School Exchange for local students who travel to the US, live 6 months on campus or with a family while attending the sixth form and graduating from an excellent American school; Scholarships for secondary school teachers to attend the Cultural Seminar at the Shakespeare Globe Theatre in London, to meet and work with Globe Theatre staff and Globe Education practitioners; Scholarships for secondary school teachers to attend the Stratford Study Course (plays, lectures, discussions and workshops, devised and delivered by Shakespearian experts) in Stratford-upon-Avon; Scholarships for young professionals to attend the International Summer Conference at Mansfield College, in Oxford; Farming Exchange Programme for young farmers from the UK, who spend time on Argentine estancias, and for young local farmers spending time working in farms in England and Scotland; The Walter Hines Page Secondary School Exchange Programme for teachers from Argentina and the US who visit a group of the finest schools in the host country; Capitol Hill Programme, through which local students of international relations, political sciences or law spend a few months as interns in the US Senate in Washington, D.C.; Annual Business Luncheon, aimed at reaching out and creating awareness of the ESU and its mission within the local business community. Annual Singing Competition at the British Embassy.
Our challenge for next year is to continue to grow in institutional and individual membership by creating awareness of the ESU and its mission among the education and business communities and by attracting young and/or energetic people interested in promoting good will and understanding. ESU Argentina is proud of its growth and of its contribution to our community.
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH SEPAKING UNION
PUBLIC SPEAKING COMPETITION 2012
The Theme Argentina will use at the National and International ESU Public Speaking Competition finals is the following:
The Head or the Heart?
British Embassy , Thursday 19th April 2012 IPSC Final in London Monday 14th May 2012, to Friday 18th May 2012
Simon Martin, HSBC’s Head of Group Corporate Sustainability says:
HSBC is delighted to fund the English-Speaking Union’s International Public Speaking Competition in 2012. This year, the Bank is again supporting the final in London and also the earlier rounds in many of the participating countries. In a changing world, the Bank promotes cultural awareness, tolerance and education.
“The promotion of language is central to our aims. Language opens doors, removes barriers and helps people to understand attitudes and behavior. There are currently 450 million native speakers of English, but perhaps as many as 1 billion learning it as a second language. With its long history and expertise, the ESU is in a unique position to introduce the English language to new speakers around the world.
The International Public Speaking Competition is an exciting event that enables talented young people to meet, demonstrate their command of English and learn more about other cultures.”
What's in the handbook?
The handbook contains the rules of the competition, an explanation of the competition structure and format, as well as a comprehensive set of tips and guidelines for speakers and adjudicators for both prepared and impromptu speeches.
The ESU Website www.esu.org.ar
Changes for the future
This year only one participant per competing country will be eligible to attend the IPSC from now onwards. This change is to facilitate the expansion of the competition to new countries. Another change being introduced this year is that we will no longer be producing professionally printed copies of the competition handbook. Modern communication has advanced to the point where e-mail and the internet are the preferred methods of communication by most individuals, businesses and other organisations around the world. As a modern, dynamic and (crucially) global charity, the ESU must also increase and improve our use of e-mail and online communication. In addition, as a charity, the ESU has an obligation to spend its charitable funds in the most efficient way possible. It is no longer appropriate to spend thousands of pounds printing and posting copies of the IPSC handbook around the world, when e-mail and the internet offer a better alternative. Finally, all departments within the ESU are making a concerted effort to 'go green' and reduce the amount of paper we use by printing and posting less.
Kind regards,
ESU UK
Cecilia Perdomo de Rodman
National Public Speaking Competition Coordinator
Mary's lifelong commitment is to help break cycles of deprivation and to support projects for the young particularly those which bring hope opportunity to those who have little of either. She continues this work as Chairman of the English-Speaking Union and as President of SOS Children's Villages. She was DCSF Ambassador for the Boarding Pathfinder for Vulnerable Children.
Mary took her degree and PGCE at Liverpool University and then spent some time as an army officer. She continues this interest in the services and currently Chairs the DFE/MOD London Challenge Cadet Partnership Pilot Project Steering and is a trustee of the Marine Society and Sea Cadets because she believes that the cadet experience provides formative and challenging opportunities for young people. She also chairs the advisory committee on education to HRH Prince Seeiso, High Commissioner for Lesotho.
When she married, she supported her husband in his general medical practice and began her teaching career, later becoming a head teacher of a large secondary school in Harlesden, Brent, where she spent 15 years and transformed it from a failing school to one which annually sent students to Oxbridge. In 1999 she was asked to join HSBC to set up and be Chief Executive of HSBC Global Education Trust, at a time when HSBC operated in 81 countries and territories. She left HSBC in 2008. During that time the HSBC Global Education Trust encouraged international understanding through the teaching of languages particularly English, and Mandarin in UK schools, and supported global projects for street children, orphans, and children in care.
Mary also continues on a number of grant making trusts including the Dulverton Trust, and Vitol Foundation. She is a trustee on several boards including the Oxford Literary Festival, Shakespeare's Globe, Ripon College, Oxford and the ICCH, Imperial College. She is a school governor at City of London School (Boys), Thornton College, and the Royal Alexandra and Albert state boarding school. She is Patron of Four Pillars, a group specialising in good governance. Mary holds honorary doctorates from Brunel, City and Richmond Universities. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and is a Founding Ambassador of Teach First.
She has two children, both doctors, and two grandchildren.
At a meeting of ESU staff today Dame Mary Richardson said she was delighted to be able to announce that the Governors have chosen Peter Kyle OBE to be the ESU's next Director General.
He will take up post on 11 July.
Peter has had a very distinguished career in the arts and cultural sectors as a performer, teacher, director and manager both in the UK and internationally. His most recent post was Chief Executive of The Shakespeare Globe Trust for twelve years. He was awarded the OBE for his services to drama in this year's New Year honours.
Peter is an Honorary Fellow of South Bank University and a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. He is Chairman of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and of The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. He is Deputy Chairman of the University of Westminster and a Trustee of the Noel Coward Foundation.
Dame Mary Richardson
Chairman
The English-Speaking Union
11/23/2009
If the concept of “Cool Britannia” was a strong selling-point in the Tony Blair success story, climate change has made the world anything but cool for his successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown. Less than three weeks away from the Copenhagen global conference on climate change, British Ambassador Shan Morgan could hardly have chosen a more timely topic for the annual business luncheon of the English-Speaking Union (ESU) last Tuesday.
Throughout her speech Morgan was at pains to present the issue as an opportunity as much as a problem, She described climate change as “my top personal priority” since arriving here almost a year ago and among the big four for London’s Foreign Office alongside counter-terrorism, conflict resolution and developing effective international institutions. And nor is British Foreign Secretary David Milliband a lone voice here — the recent disappearance of an entire village in a flash flood has really awoken public awareness.
Environmental concern was not just "tree-hugging," she said, but a profoundly economic issue with alarming implications for agricultural drought, strain on buildings and many other aspects. British economist Lord Stern has been a pioneer in quantifying this economic cost, estimating that it could cost as much as 20 percent of global production by mid-century — to place this in context, the acute international crisis of the past year is expected to cost between two and four percent of global production.
And because this is a global problem (greenhouse gases do not respect borders), Britain is looking at the whole world including Argentina — London is helping to finance a CEPAL/Fundación Bariloche study on the economic impact of climate change for Argentina, with input from British ministerial experts.
Britain (responsible for two percent of global emissions) has a "historic responsibility" as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution and has more than complied with the Kyoto Protocol with the firm commitment to reduce emissions by 80 percent by mid-century. But action is needed from the United States, China, Brazil and the rest of the European Union if emissions are to be halved as urged by the world's top scientists — otherwise all countries will suffer together.
In Morgan’s view, this global scourge is especially relevant to Argentina both as a threat and as an opportunity. The South American region as a whole is vulnerable, according to Britain’s Hadley Centre, with scenarios of Amazon drought, the disappearance of Andean glaciers, sagging farm productions and extreme weather events in general. Argentina certainly knows all about drought and an acute lack of water is forecast for the Cuyo region in particular.
But switching to renewable sources of energy is an investment as much as a cost, said Morgan — all these new technologies will require new industries and the creation of “green jobs” will spur growth while important sums would be saved from expensive fossil fuel bills (not to mention public health from less urban pollution). As Brown has pointed out, those switching first will reap important advantages from these growth areas of the future.
If the City of London has become a world leader in the carbon trading emerging from the Kyoto Protocol, the finances to pay for this transition to a low-carbon economy will flow from developed to developing countries (to the tune of 100 billion dollars by 2020 according to Brown) — and this can only benefit Argentina. And, as always, Argentina has its natural advantages such as some of the windiest places on the planet.
Looking ahead to Copenhagen, Morgan warned her audience from expecting everything from this event which could only be a milestone at best — but she also warned them against resigning themselves to the impossibility of a deal in Denmark, as frequently forecast in the press. While a final legal treaty looked improbable, it was consensus which really mattered and that looked eminently possible, judging from the statements of the US, Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders.
Yet she also stressed that this negotiation would not be easy (“if it was, then a global deal would have been achieved a long time ago”) and that there were many voices to urge that tackling global recession came first. But that logic was fallacious, Morgan insisted — inaction was too expensive while action now would speed up the new opportunities for the future (“opportunities that can drive economic growth, promote social development and create jobs”).
Based on Britain’s experience, Morgan said that the next stage in Argentina was to spread awareness via the media and civil society, also highlighting that “this is an opportunity, not just a threat.” In Britain the issue had seemed too technically difficult for much of the population and had encountered widespread skepticism — now there was a national consensus that this issue is “too important to ignore.”
Asked by the Herald if organic farming and windmills would suffice for a world population expected to reach nine billion in the next 30 years, Morgan admitted the need for nuclear power — she also touched on the problem of agricultural emissions in feeding the world of the future.
Her speech was preceded by Gerónimo Frigerio from the Inter-American Development Bank (BID), the recipient of an ESU scholarship to attend a week of international debate at Mansfield College, Oxford. Frigerio said he had expected a politically correct consensus and was startled by the frank discussion of global thinking versus local action, the future of Western dominance with the rise of China, development, poverty, corruption, etc.
Morgan was introduced by ESU president Malcolm Rodman, who said that the shadow of drought in the four last harvests should make the urgency of climate change evident, even if day-to-day politics always seemed to take priority.
The guest speaker was accompanied by fellow-ambassadors Lucy Duncan (New Zealand), Philomena Murnaghan (Ireland) and Tony Leon (South Africa) as well as the US Embassy attaché for the environment, science and technology, Russell Menyhart; also representatives of HSBC Bank and British Airways and such luminaries of the English language world as Ofelia Veltri and Litty Mora.
Institutional
The ESU is an independent non-political, educational charity with members throughout the United Kingdom and the United States and branches in more than 50 countries worldwide. Its purpose is to promote international understanding and human development through the widening use of the English language. For millions of people throughout the world it is the key to personal achievement in business, politics, technology and the arts. The English language plays a vital role in contributing towards international cooperation and friendship.
Mary's lifelong commitment is to help break cycles of deprivation and to support projects for the young particularly those which bring hope opportunity to those who have little of either. She continues this work as Chairman of the English-Speaking Union and as President of SOS Children's Villages. She was DCSF Ambassador for the Boarding Pathfinder for Vulnerable Children.
At a meeting of ESU staff today Dame Mary Richardson said she was delighted to be able to announce that the Governors have chosen Peter Kyle OBE to be the ESU's next Director General.
Environmental concern was not just "tree-hugging," she said, but a profoundly economic issue with alarming implications for agricultural drought, strain on buildings and many other aspects. British economist Lord Stern has been a pioneer in quantifying this economic cost, estimating that it could cost as much as 20 percent of global production by mid-century — to place this in context, the acute international crisis of the past year is expected to cost between two and four percent of global production.
And because this is a global problem (greenhouse gases do not respect borders), Britain is looking at the whole world including Argentina — London is helping to finance a CEPAL/Fundación Bariloche study on the economic impact of climate change for Argentina, with input from British ministerial experts.
Britain (responsible for two percent of global emissions) has a "historic responsibility" as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution and has more than complied with the Kyoto Protocol with the firm commitment to reduce emissions by 80 percent by mid-century. But action is needed from the United States, China, Brazil and the rest of the European Union if emissions are to be halved as urged by the world's top scientists — otherwise all countries will suffer together.
