The past two weeks I was back again in Mozambique, a country where I lived and worked for two years (1988-1990 period) with MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders). Since then I had been back already during the 2008-2012 period during which I worked on a bi-lateral development program between Canadian and Mozambican higher education institutions. This program now has a second phase and we got a project within this program with Seneca College on academic management & leadership training. In our hotel in the northern city of TETE I was once again delighted to see one of those "symbols" of the African continent: the "boabab" tree.
Everywhere you go in the world you find this famous Dutch product ... :-)
One of the "lunches of champions" we enjoyed in Tete in between our meetings....
Two of the management teams we will work with at the two partner institutions in Tete. Above the team at the Instituto Industrial de Moatize. Below the team of the Instituto de Geologia and Mineria de Moatize. They offer a mix of short term training, technical high school training and higher education diploma programs. They will both work with a variety of colleges from Canada to design new diploma program in response to the growing local mining industry. We will focus on upskilling their management team with respect to overall management, information systems, student services and industry partnerships.
In Moatize they already worked with Canadian colleges and out of that project came this very modern and well equipped computer instruction classroom.
During the coming four years we will put Canadian teaching experts together with their colleagues in Mozambique and work hard in this meeting and presentation room.
And from that room we went to Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique, for program meetings with the representatives from Tete and Pemba (the second city in the north where we will cooperate with three more higher education institutions), the Mozambican Ministries and the Canadian colleagues.
In between and after the group meetings you could find smaller groups working together and of course there are always the moments to catch up on communications (laptops and mobile phones).
The city of Maputo is located on the Indian Ocean just north of South Africa. They have a natural harbor and at sunset this gives you a beautiful scenery.
The view of the ocean is always stunning and the weather is throughout the year with nice temperatures between 15 and 30 degrees. The city has its problems and challenges, and the divide between (new) rich and (ongoing) poor is something to resolve, but the setting is spectacular.
The new airport (constructed and financed by the government of China) is certainly something else from the airport in which I spent a lot of time and logistics work during the 1988-1990 period. In many ways the country is moving forward, but there is still a long way to go. Goodbye my dear friends in Mozambique; "ate logo" (see you next time).
