Luanda (Angola) - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is a former lathe operator whose only schooling beyond the grade school was at a professional training course run by Brazil's Industrial Apprentice Service (Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial) (Senai). Yesterday Lula visited a Senai school in Luanda where youths in a country coming out of a 40-year civil war are getting a chance to do something with their lives. According to Lula, his course at Senai changed his life; it was a change "from water to wine," he likes to say.
The Senai training center in the poor neighborhood of Cazenga on the outskirts of Luanda opened in 1998. Every six months, one thousand students go through courses in civil construction, clothing manufacturing, maintenance of home appliances and diesel mechanics. Senai invested US$4 million in the school. It is one of Brazil's biggest international aid projects.
When he arrived at the school, Lula was surprised to see a mural with a large photo of himself when he was a 15-year old trainee at a Senai training center in São Paulo. "Senai was a gateway for me that led to everything else that happened in my life. It was the best moment in my youth; it was a turning point in my life. That is the truth. After I learned a profession, I was able to do what many other youths have not been able to do," he said.
Lula added that professional training is the first step toward becoming a full-fledged citizen. "A young boy or girl who gets into a school like this can get professional training that will change his life. In a developing country like this, that means having choices and chances to get work, and to get a better salary."
Immediately following its independence in the 1960s, Angola was plunged into a civil war that brutally pushed education into the background. Military spending consumed a third ot the country's budget for decades. The result is that today half of Angola's population is illiterate. Skilled labor is practically non-existent. An example of just how profound the problem is: at the Senai training center the lumber used in classes is imported because there are no sawmills in Angola. "Foreign labor is expensive and does not stay in country," says Alice de Abreu, of the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation, as she explains just how important Brazilian aid programs are to Angola.
The challenge in Angola is to educate an entire generation. Brazil, with its close language and cultural ties, is already engaged in dealing with the problem to the point where Angola has become the main destination of Brazilian technical cooperation programs abroad. Brazilian cooperation with Angola covers many areas: agronomy, veterinary sciences, rural assistance, family farming, environmental education, petroleum engineering, urban development and public administration, just to name a few.
"Brazil cannot compete with countries like Germany and Japan in financial resources, so we do what we can, by setting up cooperation agreements in many areas," says Alice de Abreu.
On the heels of the Brazilian government, the Brazilian private sector is also coming to Angola. Brazil's largest private university is doing market studies. The construction firm, Norberto Odebrecht employs 24 former Senai students. Petrobras operates in Angola, in partnership with the local state-run petroleum company, and trains Angolans and sends many to universities in Brazil. (AB)
