SFL Around the World: November 2017
North America
November was an exciting month in North America for Students For Liberty. We wrapped up our 2017 Regional Conference Season and welcomed John Mackey to our the Board of Directors!
In November, Students For Liberty held our final seven Regional Conferences across the United States and Canada. These Regional Conferences are a series of unique events that are are completely planned and executed by our student leaders. Regional Conferences provide a fantastic opportunity for liberty-minded students unlike any other on today’s college campuses.
Now that the exciting Regional Conference season is over, we’re excited for LibertyCon. Hosted March 2-4, 2018, LibertyCon will be the premier pro-liberty conference of 2018. Join us in Washington D.C. and help usher in a new chapter for the global liberty movement ‒ just when we need it most.
See the full North America update here.
Europe
Another six amazing Regional Conferences took place in Europe. With over 900 participants and an absolute record in attendance, the grand finale of the entire conference season belonged to Tbilisi, Georgia!
The 2017 European Students For Liberty Regional Conference season started on September 23rd and concluded on November 25th. During those 3 months, we were able to bring 3,489 participants to conferences in 18 different countries. Seven of these were completely new locations where we hadn’t hosted a conference before.
We have also organized a number of local events covering issues such as Bitcoin and Blockchain in Slovakia, Free market and capitalism in Poland and lectures by Dr. Yaron Brook in Spain.
We held a discussion on Federalism over Liberalism in France, a debate on organ donation in Switzerland and a public campus discussion on a variety of libertarian topics along with mulled wine degustation in Passau, Germany.
Make sure to check out the success story of Frederic Jolien, running one of the biggest crowdfunding campaigns in the whole Switzerland!
We also have some exciting news from the post-soviet countries. The Constitutional Court of Georgia decriminalized personal use of marijuana while campaigns for ending the war on drugs are also taking a bid stand in Belarus and Lithuania. What a wonderful month!
Brazil
November was an intense month for Students For Liberty Brazil. They finished their Local Coordinators Selection Process and got over 2190 applications that are now going through the interview phase. It’s the biggest selection ever held worldwide.
Moreover, during the second half of the last month, SFLB opened the Conference Directors’ selection, to pick the best candidates to run our 25 State Conferences that will take place in March and April. As well as the Local Coordinators selection, this one broke the record of states that will receive our event.
South Asia
South Asia hosted four successful on-ground events in the month of November. These were hosted across the region – one in Punjab, one in Kerala, one in Pakistan and the last one in Nepal.
An introductory session on libertarian ideas was conducted in the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab for 200 students. The second event was a Speaker Session “Liberalization of Indian Education Sector” which took place on November 10 at Baselius College, Kottayam. The third event of the month and the first ever SASFL event in Pakistan took place in Forman Christian College University. The event was a Vox pop which dealt with questions on issues of censorship, freedom of speech, freedom of expression as well as privacy. The month’s events rounded up with the first of many Speaker’s Corner event held in Nepal.
Africa
Over 300 Students gathered at first ever SFL conference in Francophone Africa!
The past few months have been pretty busy with our Regional Conferences, and with a large number of attendees. Last November was no exception. Over 300 students gathered at the French Institute of Burundi in Bujumbura, Burundi for the first ever Students For Liberty Conference we have ever held in Francophone Africa. Read more about the conference here.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Nigeria in partnership with Youthrise Network held a 2-day summit to train its chapter leaders on drug use and policies. The summit was co-organized by its National Coordinator & ASFL West Africa Regional Director, Moronfolu Adeniyi. The summit addressed the punitive approach of the government drug policy with the slogan “War on Drugs” which is retrogressive and has adverse social, economic, and political implications on the society.
See the full Africa update.
Charter Teams
In South East Asia, our ever-busy group in Singapore managed to pull off yet another event – the fifth within five months! – in mid-November.
This time, it was Carmelo Ferlito (a senior fellow of the liberal IDEAs think tank in Malaysia) who joined the group to talk about “Entrepreneurship and Capital in the 21st Century”. 50 interested students and young professionals joined alongside with Acton Institute’s Li Schoolland for a conversation about the future of Austrian Economics and its application to the Asia-Pacific region.