2023 BARCELONA
CULTIVATING COURAGE
2023 saw the second public speaking competition from 4Voices take place at CaixaForum in Barcelona on 26 March with the theme ‘Cultivating Courage’
We received scores of entries from schools not just in Catalonia but across Spain and eventually whittled it down to a final 13 from 4th ESO and 1st Bachillerato. These exceptional youngsters shared with us how they had not only faced their fears but had gone on to embrace them and many had taken action to overcome them. What was even more inspiring was watching their empowering journey as youngsters with very little experience of public speaking to being able to present in front of a packed out audience.
4Voices couldn’t be prouder of our 13 finalists and while we firmly believe that all of them were winners the competition does award prizes so congratulations to:
FIRST
Audrey Nagel (The British School of Barcelona)
Risk: the only path to success
SECOND
Jerome Ow Hidalgo (St Peter’s School)
Find the courage, mankind’s greatest tool towards self improvement
THIRD
Lucas Juez Zúñiga (Cambridge School)
The king and the pawn are carved from the same tree
Lucas Juez Zúñiga, Audrey Nagel, Jerome Ow Hidalgo
Visit our YouTube channel to see the full versions of the speeches
I was blown away by their articulate, mature, passionate, creative, funny and engaging speeches, and by what they have learned from their own, painful and traumatic life experiences. It was impossible for me to stay dry-eyed! The wisdom in the lessons they had learned was incredible for people so young.
As part of her first prize, 16-year-old Audrey chatted to 4Voices co-founder and broadcaster Carrie Frais about what she learnt from taking part in the competition, growing up in Toronto, moving to Sitges (Spain) at 12 and her love of engineering (and Taylor Swift), all told via The Soundtrack to My Life. Here’s a snippet:
Speaking in public is one of the most important acts of courage there is. Standing alone, vulnerable and exposed but driven to be there by a passion to share your opinion, raise your voice and be an instrument of change in yourself and others! Public speaking is fun, it is life changing and it is an act of courage available to everyone. At 4Voices we are proud to provide the opportunity for these inspiring young people to change the world!