SFL Around the World: December 2017
North America
In North America, December was the time to prepare for the New Year. We had our end of year fundraising campaign, where all donations up to $50,000 were matched. Elizabeth Hayes, the North American Leadership Manager, interviewed David Kelley, Founder of the Atlas Society. Together, they discussed objectivism and current events. You can watch part 1 here and part 2 here. For LibertyCon, our upcoming annual conference, we announced an immigration debate and you can watch an update on the conference presented by Students For Liberty CEO, Dr. Wolf von Laer. In the months ahead, we will be focused on LibertyCon and we can’t wait to see you there.
See the full North America update here.
Europe
Busy as usual, our leaders finished the year with great events happening all around Europe. Slovak Students For Liberty organized a day-long conference right at the beginning of the month. Is Bitcoin retro? Almost 150 people came to Bratislava to get an answer to that question. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were also the main topic of another conference organized SFL Valencia.
SFL group at Ben Gurion University, Israel hosted a fascinating lecture Roy Iddan on main factors that Influence cost of living in Israel. ESFL Local Coordinator and member of SFL’s International Executive Board Ryan Khurana appeared on Fox 5 to weight on the growing drumbeat in Washington to regulate social media platforms. You can watch him here. Another ESFL leader Piotr Markiełaŭ was featured in major Belarusian online newspaper where he gave an interview on Legalize Belarus campaign. Read the full article here.
Brazil
The last month of 2017 was extremely important for Students For Liberty in Brazil. After achieving 2,193 applications for the Leadership Program in the country, it was time to interview all applicants in order to select those who can advance our mission. 1,336 applicants were accepted and are now going through our online basic training on SFL Academy.
After finishing it, they become Local Coordinators and are ready to start developing projects, events and activities that will be effective in spreading liberty at brazilian universities.
South Asia
South Asia ended 2017 on a high note, with it’s second retreat being hosted in Kathmandu, Nepal from December 15-17. The retreat hosted 20 participants overall including Local Coordinators from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. This was also the first event where the LCs and a few EB members had the opportunity to meet in person our new staff member Daniel Issing.
The program of the retreat included sessions around SFL’s vision and mission, track presentations as well as a guest session with Basanta Adhikari, from Bikalpa (a libertarian think tank in Nepal). Other events conducted in the month of December included a debate conducted at Bethune College in Kolkata, which witnessed a total of 90 participants; along with the weekly event of Speaker’s Corner in Nepal and the first of monthly colloquium session.
Africa
East Africa: Through the month of December 2017, Students For Liberty in Eastern Africa focused its energy on series of entrepreneurship programs. These events which were held in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda hosted American Entrepreneur John Chisolm, and author of ‘Unleash Your Inner Company’. Several students gathered in these countries to learn valuable insights on business, the creation and growth of an ideal company.
West Africa: West African Regional Director, Moronfolu Adeniyi was featured on Nigeria’s ‘The Podium Show’ where he talked about Drugs, Drug policy and the right approach to solve the menace caused by drugs In Nigeria, & West Africa. Moronfolu doubles as the National Coordinator of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Nigeria.
ASFL Featured in Atlas Network’s Freedom Champion: ASFL Programs Manager, Linda Kavuka was featured in Atlas Network‘s Winter Edition of Freedom’s Champion!
See the full African update.
Charter Teams
In December, Charter Teams focused mostly on preparing events surrounding the upcoming Asia Liberty Forum (Jakarta, February 10-11), a major gathering of free-market think tanks and institutes throughout Asia. Among other things, the Indonesian team is planning a seminar on political economy, a leadership forum and two conferences. In addition, many new candidates are currently undergoing the online Coordinator Training, with countries raging from Lebanon and Iraq all the way to the Philippines and Australia.
Our Singapore group, in the meanwhile, hosted two events: December 16 featured the a movie screening of the Acton Institute’s Poverty, Inc., and just on January 6, organized another major gathering to discuss consumer choice and the nanny state.
