Ilídio Deocleciano Salomão Dos Santos, a Mozambican who travelled across the world and landed in China with the mission of continuing his studies. Within this new social dynamic, he became a driving force behind meetings and reflections between Mozambicans around the world and beyond, opening up windows of opportunity and visions of Mozambique in the academic community. We're talking about the Forum for Academic, Social and Cultural Interaction (FASOC), which is an important initiative for glimpsing the different possibilities of contemporary challenges.
Ilídio Dos Santos is currently studying for a PhD in Environmental Sciences and Engineering at Wuhan University of Technology, specialising in wastewater treatment and solid waste.
It was at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic that he became a co-founder and representative of the Intellectual Space, which recently solidified into the Forum for Academic, Social and Cultural Interaction (FASOC), a virtual communication medium created in 2020, with the aim of developing academic, socio-economic and cultural debates, in order to contribute to the country's social development. But we're already there. We need to know his origins to perhaps better understand this Mozambican.
From cattle herder to environmental scientist
Born in the district of Manjacaze, in the southern part of Mozambique, in Gaza, Ilídio dos Santos was, as a child, a shepherd of cattle and goats and also looked for grass for his pigs. With the animals to look after on a daily basis, the walks he took around places like Nhawurongole and Mangwenhane with his friends didn't stop him from dreaming of going on to higher education. Prior to this, he applied to two universities and was turned down. The following year, he applied to three more and was admitted to all of them. He opted for the School of Rural Development at Eduardo Mondlane University to study Agroprocessing, but due to the financial problems he was facing, he applied for a provincial scholarship to cover the costs of his training.
It was in the process of submitting the documentation for a scholarship that he was fortunate enough to be selected for a scholarship to go to China, but for a different course to the one he was attending in Mozambique. In August 2011, he left for that Asian country in the company of around 90 Mozambican scholarship holders.
After the years of training, when he returned home, the opportunities at the level he had obtained were practically scarce and in 2017 he added a master's degree and the university he was attending invited him to continue with the next level, a doctorate.
Focus on Mozambique's development
However, the realisation of his dreams made him aware of the needs faced by others. He realised that academic communication between Mozambicans, students and others, was almost non-existent and decided to create FASOC, together with other students, Dario Chaluco, Sheila Rabeca, Mansur Mussa and Elina Novele. "For example, academics isolate themselves from the majority of the community, focusing on their research and the results obtained, which at some point should benefit the community and society in general, are not disseminated, are not shared and are completely unknown to society and through FASOC, which is the first Mozambican virtual communication platform that develops debates freely every Sunday, which reflects, discusses, analyses and evaluates scientific knowledge or not, in order to find its contribution to the development of the country" he told us from China, this is his contribution to reducing the lack of interaction between Mozambicans on academic, socio-economic and cultural issues.
As a foreign student, he realised, along with other students, the importance of communication, interaction and the need for cultural exchange between peoples. At some point, explains Ilídio Dos Santos, "that it is the Mozambican himself who isolates himself from debates, sometimes because he feels incapable of doing so, citing various reasons, including not being a specialist in a particular area, subject, etc."
Ilídio dos Santos had to find mechanisms to connect academia with society.
"The idea is to contribute to the development of our own society, of our country, and above all, to demystify limitation and echo broad (national) debates, where all Mozambicans can have a space to speak, where everyone can feel useful in society."
In the debate space created by FASOC, the focus is on different areas, but always on finding practical solutions from academic knowledge to reality.
"Research, agribusiness and so on in the agricultural field, for example, can enable an agronomist in a particular corner of the country to find out which variety of maize seed is most likely to withstand a particular environment (what type of soil it can be sown in, when it can be sown, when it can be harvested and so on) without having to travel from one corner of the country to another. With the information shared in debates promoted by FASOC, in the various areas of knowledge, Mozambicans can reflect, learn, question, consult and suggest so that we can move towards what we want as a society," explains Ilídio Dos Santos.
The debates have already exceeded 100 editions and are usually led, on average, by a speaker and moderator, and have covered various topics such as: Entrepreneurship: Social innovation as a development strategy; Reflection on discrimination, violence and racism in the search for opportunities in the diaspora; Wastewater treatment using geopolymer technology; Analysing the causes and consequences of land conflicts in Mozambique; Psychoanalysis and culture: on the practice of traditional initiation rites in Mozambique; Reflection on the impact of foreign aid on the Mozambican economy, among others. Topics on patriotic issues have also been covered, such as: The value of 25 September and 7 September, seeking to understand the meaning of the celebration for the new generation.
The FASOC debates have an average of 20 participants per session, with speakers from Mozambique and other countries, as well as from other corners of the world such as Algeria, South Africa, Russia, China, the United States of America, Brazil and so on, with the aim of expanding the range of our target audience. Therefore, please feel invited to join the debates every Sunday at 3pm in Mozambique via the ZOOM platform, to share a particular academic, socio-economic and cultural topic, as well as a participant in the programme.
By Joana Carlos
