Down Córdoba demonstrates the value of the word with its participation in ‘I have an opinion’CORDOVA
Can you have a healthy diet in today’s society? This is the topic that the eight young users of the association Down Córdoba who have participated in I have an opinion, the world’s first debate league between people with Intellectual Disability which was held this past weekend in Madrid.
“It has been a magnificent experience,” said the president of Down Córdoba, Fabián Cámara, who explains that “it is no longer just the debate, which is also very important, it is also the coexistence with other teams, other people than We have learnt a lot“, he assures.
Moment of the Córdoba team’s presentation.
This is the third edition of the program, although it is the first for Córdoba, “we learned about it thanks to our colleagues from Granada.” For this activity, the participants have had to work not only on the arguments that justify the contrary position to the proposed topic, also other issues related to posture or language. “It is a brutal way for a person with an intellectual disability to train cognitively“Since you have to put a lot of skills into play, it is an experience at all levels that is worth it,” explains the president of the Córdoba entity.
Seven months of preparation
Laura Molina, Laura Muñiz, Francisco Varas, Fabián Cámara, José Manuel Sicilia, María Antúnez, Cristina Cano and Alejandro del Río They have been the participants who have made up the Córdoba team. As the rules indicate, four people take part in each debate and another four are substitutes, but, as the president has detailed, “given the effort that everyone had made, having to compete twice – against groups from Valladolid and Alicante – we decided that everyone intervened forming two teams.”
The young people have been preparing for this event since January. In addition to the entity’s professionals, “the organization itself looks for you mentors between boys and girls who have participated in the university debate league,” adds Cámara. In this case, Carmen Cabello has been in charge of preparing them together with the retired university professor and expert in linguistics, Juan Pedro Gómez. In each session, in addition to the arguments, the young people prepared evidence to accompany their story, including a report from CÓRDOBA. The experience has been so positive that “already we are thinking about next year“, concludes Cámara.
