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- Free Speech Debate – 24 December 2014
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Speakers’ Corner Trust is a registered charity which promotes free expression, public debate and active citizenship.
Our approach is based on the belief that association between citizens and the free, face-to-face exchange of ideas, information and opinions – with each other as well as with the decision-takers among them – is a key to rebuilding trust and participation in community life and governance in Britain and developing vibrant civil institutions and robust rights in emerging democracies.
Programmes & Projects
SCT has three core programmes, the first focused on creating a national network of local Speakers' Corner projects in the UK, the second on undertaking initiatives overseas and the third on developing educational resources designed to encourage and enable people to express their ideas and opinions in public. More
Special Initiatives & Resources
SCT has formed a number of partnerships with major organisations which enable it to pursue projects which it could not undertake alone. It has, for example, worked with the Southbank Centre on the production of Speaking Out, a download introducing the basic skills required for confident speaking in public, and with Central St Martins College of Art and Design on the creation of prototype Speakers’ Corners.More
Youth Amplified
Youth Amplified is free to use and features videos, animations and downloadable guides for teachers and youth workers designed to help 11-18 year-olds develop effective speaking and listening skills and confidence in using them.
The website is the outcome of a nine month project by SCT and the University of Leeds supported by the BAFTA-winning digital design agency Bold Creative and funded buy the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. You can access Youth Amplified here.
Latest News
Peter Bradley Steps Down as SCT Director
After ten years in the role, SCT’s co-founder Peter Bradley has stepped down as its director. He is succeeded by Bryn Harris who has served as SCT’s new projects director for the past three years. In his farewell message to SCT’s supporters, Peter wrote:“I wanted to thank you for your support for the work we do and in many cases for the partnership and collaboration without which many of our projects and initiatives would not have been possible. I’m very proud of what we have achieved together.
“SCT’s mission – to promote, freedom of expression, public debate and active citizenship – is now even more important than it was when we started out a decade ago. We urgently need to restore the humanising and enriching value of face-to-face engagement between citizens. Even more urgently, we have to find a way of fulfilling the internet’s enormous potential as a forum for the kind of civil and constructive debate which underpins the democratic process.
“These are challenges which await our new director, Bryn Harris. He is a person of ideas and energy and ideally qualified to take SCT into its second decade.”
Support SCT
SCT is a small and cost-efficient registered charity with very low overheads. Since we were formed in 2007, we have successfully extended the scope and reach of our work through partnership and collaboration rather than by increasing our own size and costs. That remains our strategy.
But like any other charity we do have to meet our modest costs and your support would be very much appreciated.
Hot Topics
Forum for Debate
In Political Correctness - Opening Eyes or losing Minds?, the latest in SCT's Forum for Debate series, Claire Fox of the Academy of Ideas and Robert Sharp of English PEN consider whether PC changes minds or stifles debate.More
Nigeria Speakers’ Corner
With support from the Ford Foundation, SCT has established Speakers' Corner Trust Nigeria as an affiliated but independent sister organisation. Following its launch in Abuja in November 2012, SCTN has undertaken its first local projects and is now planning more.
Leicester Speaks
Since SCT helped originate Leicester Speaks during Local Democracy Week in 2010, the local partnership has gone from strength in each successive year - as you can see from these three short but inspirational films.
Speaking Out
Speaking Out is a fifteen minute film jointly commissioned by SCT and the Southbank Centre which seeks to provide inspiration and encouragement to people who have opinions and ideas to communicate.
Support SCT
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Freedom of Expression
"Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democratic life. It is by the free exchange of ideas among citizens about how they should live together and how they should be governed that we create and sustain the democratic society. So the rights to free association and expression are scarcely less important than the right to live in peace and free from want."
Václav Havel, playwright, former President of the Czech Republic, Founding Patron of Speakers’ Corner Trust
Forum for Debate
SCT's online Forum for Debate provides a space for leading academics, campaigners and commentators to set out balanced arguments on key contemporary issues as a means of stimulating wider public debate about them.
Each debate is supplemented by an invaluable bibliography of further reading provided by the British Library.