Youth leaders show skills in Jubail oratory contest

The Jubail Toastmasters Club (JTC) recently completed 10 years of empowering youth with effective communication and leadership skills through its very popular Youth Leadership Program (YLP).
Twenty-five students from Grades 8-12 took part in its latest three-month-long young leadership training program. JTC President Venkatesan Devarajan and his team — N. Sadagopan, Mohammed Zainudeen, Jagadeesan Kumar, A.K. Das and Jamil Akhtar — coordinated the activities with professionalism.
The youth leaders were given intense training through a number of workshops conducted by seasoned Toastmasters in P.G.R. Nair, J. Kumar, P.J.J. Antony, R.J. George, Suresh Kumar, Taher Moinuddin, Jacob Kuriakose, Vasudhar Gopal, Sushil Agrawal, Asif Rameez Daudi and Safare Mohammed.
Venkatesan was all praise for the JTC YLP 2012 team that included Imteyaz Khan, Azhar Khan, Viswaraj Ayapila, V.N. Mishra, Natraj Babu, J. Ramesh, S. Koteeswaran, Surendra Chari, Avinash Karnik, Hari Kumar and Mranalini Mishra. “They all rose to the occasion by making light of their huge responsibility,” he said. “They were very impressive.”
Toastmasters Bhaskar Patel, K.K. Raghupathy, Ehsan Ansari, Jeyashankar, Jeyakrishnan, Muralikrishnan, N.V. Arasu, Rakesh Sinha and Rajeev Pillai were among those who mentored the participants.
The grand finale at the Petrokemya Beach Camp last week was the culmination of a series of weekly programs. It witnessed two key contests during which the youth leaders were at their oratorical best.
The success of the mega event, according to Venkatesan, was largely due to the solid support from their patrons, including Petrokemya management, Gulf Farabi Managing Director Periyanayagam, Kashif Mushtaq, Anil Thomas, R.K. Bhala and S. Subramanian. They played their roles in the organizers’ mission to help the youth leaders explore and hone their communication and leadership talents.
Youth leader Kumar Lakshmi anchored the finale with aplomb. Many educators, journalists and leaders of Toastmasters fraternity, including District Governor (Saudi Arabia) Khaled A. Matlagaitu, Division-L Governor Jacob Kuriakose and International Indian School-Jubail Principal Dr. Syed Hameed were in attendance to cheer the young leaders.
Krishna Kumar delivered a keynote speech while many eminent Toastmasters such as Mohammad Al-Zawad, Javed Ansari and Meshaal Al-Enazi too lent their support to the success of the event.
The JTC YLP 2012 championship title was won by Shua Asif. Like her father Asif Daudi, a Division L champion of international speech contest, she was in her elements. The second and third place winners were Rewant and Malavika. Arbaaz Khan was the winner of the Table Topics Contest with Shuruhti and Amna coming second and third respectively.
A panel of senior Toastmasters led by Bashar Al-Saleh picked up the best of the best from among the participants.
Matlagaitu delivered the most important message of the evening: “Communications is the best tool to succeed in life.”