Public speaking anyone? The English Speaking Union addresses the BLBG

What would you do with a spare $100?

Enjoy a celebration dinner for two? Buy a designer label shirt perhaps? Order the top five or so best selling books from Amazon? Start a successful organisation to promote the English language?

“Whoops, sorry, could you run that last one past me again please?” do I hear you say? Certainly, no problem, because that’s exactly what Youmna Asseily did in 2003.

Youmna is chairman of the Lebanese chapter of the English Speaking Union (ESU). A British charity, founded just after World War I, there are now over sixty other chapters in such diverse places as Australia, Brazil and China. Yesterday evening, Youmna addressed members of the British Lebanese Business Group (BLBG) with the stated objective of explaining the work of ESU Lebanon and as an aside showed us the power of oratory in action (that’s speaking to inspire - without the “help” of PowerPoint). A joy to watch and to listen to she was.

To digress, yesterday was International Women’s Day centenary, so to have Youmna address the BLBG on that day was both serendipitous and apposite. Her audience was not quite half ladies, but did include HE Ambassador Frances Guy, and the Director of the British Council, Barbara Hewitt a grouping that would have been rather different in 1911. Given that sixty per cent of UK graduates are now women, I suspect that the currently lowly percentage of women on the Boards and in charge of British companies will have changed dramatically in less than another hundred years.

But back to the ESU Lebanon – Youmna explained that it has four main programs to achieve its stated aim of promoting international cooperation through the use and practice of English. There’s an annual public speaking competition; ESU Lebanon are rightly proud that it was won by a Lebanese student last year, earning him a trip to Buckingham Palace to receive his award from Prince Phillip: doubtless a treasured memory for life. The Debating challenge, drama experience through a tie-up with the Shakespeare Globe Theatre and workshops in creative writing with the help of the University of Iowa make up the other three. Donations and memberships fund these and provide the means for sending a few lucky young people on scholarships too.

If you want to help the work of this organisation or just want to know more, click on the links to go direct to ESU Lebanon’s web-site. And if you can’t think of a way of spoiling yourself with that spare thirty odd dollars, never mind a hundred, you could always become a member of ESU Lebanon with it.