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Alyssa Debideen, a student of the St Augustine Girl’s High School, Trinidad and Tobago, is the winner of the Eric Williams “School Bags” Essay Competition.

Her winning essay “From Agora to Echo Chamber: Reclaiming Civil Discourse in the Age of Social Media”, delivers a compelling critique of the digital landscape, exploring how social media oscillates between amplifying citizen participation and eroding democratic institutions.

As Alyssa writes, “Social Media presents itself as a ‘University’ of Woodford Square in the digital age (referring to Eric Williams’ unparalleled series of public education lectures in the 1950s).