"Integration Campus" promotes inclusion in regional university context - Communication

Secretário Regional dos Assuntos Parlamentares e Comunidades

The Regional Secretariat for Parliamentary Affairs and Communities, through the Regional Directorate for the Communities, is promoting the "Integration Campus" initiative on May 19 and 20 May at the University of the Azores in Angra do Heroísmo and Ponta Delgada.

With a view to encouraging reflection as well as academic and social debate on interculturality and integration, especially in the university context, this activity aims to create a space for sharing experiences, active listening and building bridges between cultures, valuing diversity as an essential element of academic and civic life.

This initiative is a continuation of the "Integration School" project, previously developed by the Regional Directorate for the Communities with Azorean secondary schools. It is now aimed at higher education at a time when there is a growing presence of foreign students in Azorean academic institutions.

The initiative, which is open to the public, includes two conferences dedicated to interculturality and the integration of foreign students in Azorean higher education.

The opening session is scheduled for May 19, at 10:30 a.m., at the Auditorium of the Angra do Heroísmo University campus. It will feature a speech delivered by Professor Rosana Albuquerque, from Universidade Aberta (Open University), who will present a conference on the challenges, obstacles and cultural diversity contributions in an academic context. This will be followed by the presentation of Professor Rosalina Gabriel, a lecturer at the University of the Azores, who will share her experience of accompanying international students along with an account from foreign student Martha Vounats, a Greek national studying at the Terceira campus, who will share her integration experience in the university.

The second conference will be held the following day, May 20, at the same time, at Amphitheatre VIII of the University of the Azores, in Ponta Delgada, and will adopt the same format. This session will once again be attended by Professor Rosana Albuquerque, now accompanied by Paulo Fontes, a professor at the University of the Azores, and foreign student Amadu Bela Djalo, a native from Guinea-Bissau studying at the Ponta Delgada campus, who will share his personal and higher education experiences in the Azores.

Both sessions have free admission and will end with a debate open to the academic community, promoting reflection on inclusion, institutional empathy and the promotion of cultural identities in a university context. 

The Regional Director for the Communities, José Andrade, will lead and moderate the debates.

Aware of the importance of promoting such initiatives, the Regional Government actively supports actions that encourage dialogue, the sharing of experiences and the construction of a more inclusive academic environment, open to interculturality, while strengthening cultural identities and ensuring the integration of all students.