The Organization for the Promotion of International Relations (OPIR) has launched the Read;Lead (R/Lead) International Project, which is a discussion study-group developed under the KU Book Club to enhance interaction and discussion between International and Japanese students through books which they have selected to read as a group.
As a part of this project, Kyoto University hosted an open forum titled: "Beyond The Campus: International Forum for Building Debate and Discussion Skills", which was co-sponsored by the English Speaking Union of Japan. A debate team from the United Kingdom demonstrated a British-styled Parliamentary debate on the political issue of sending British journalists to danger zones.
After the debate demonstration, the Kyoto University Secretariat explained the R/Lead discussion framework and the KU facilitators,Mr. Adriano Silvestre, Ms. Daniela Nastesuka, Mr. Glenn Fernandez and Ms. Shoei Yoshida, demonstrated a short discussion model on a similar topic: "If you owned a broadcasting company, would you send your journalists to danger zones?" For the R/Lead project, we have one-hundred participants in 18 groups who will meet every week for a small group discussion in the fall semester.
Throughout the course of this discussion project, we will work closely with our international discussion partners from National Taiwan University. We will choose the winner of the Final Group-Discussion Contest at Kyoto University on December 14, and the winning team will visit the National Taiwan University for another round of international discussion and debate. All traveling costs will be paid for by Kyoto University.
 KU Facilitators |  Discussion Demonstration by KU Facilitators |
 Greeting from the English-Speaking Union of Japan |  Parliamentary-Style Debates demonstrated by the UK Squad |