University of Calgary's Ghadeer Mahdi and Luna McDonald take first place in this year's National Japanese Speech Contest

The 33rd annual Canada National Japanese Speech Contest was held in Edmonton, Alberta on Saturday March 26, 2022. The contest featured a total of 26 contestants from all across Canada of whom 2 were from the University of Calgary: Ghadeer Mahdi in the beginner category and Luna McDonald in the open category. With their great effort and support from many Japanese instructors including but not limited to: Akiko Sharp, Yoko Kodama, Hinako Ishikawa, Masako Shimada, Hitomi Krebes, and Hitomi Nishikawa, both contests from the University of Calgary won first place in their respective categories!

Ghadeer Mahdi is currently a third-year undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology. Her speech ‘Enjoying Sports’ sheds some light on her personal experience growing up and being told that she cannot play sports because she is a girl. In her speech, she discusses her belief that anyone and everyone can enjoy sports.

Luna McDonald is a fourth-year undergraduate student currently majoring in Natural Science with a minor in Law and Society. Her speech ‘My Language and Personality’ is an enlightening talk in which she describes how growing up with both English and Japanese, she has acquired two different personalities corresponding to each language. She emphasizes how the cultural differences from both countries have led to the development of these two personalities.

Each year, many students from the University of Calgary enter the Alberta district contest, proceed to the National contest, and come back with very proud results. Once again, congratulations to Ghadeer and Luna on their great achievement. We look forward to seeing more University of Calgary students participating in the speech contest next year.

(Written by Ghadeer Mahdi, one of the contestants)