AAUMinho creates African Students Section to promote integration in academia

The Academic Association of the University of Minho (AAUMinho) created the African Student Section (SEA) with the aim of promoting inclusion and participation in the academy’s activities.

Speaking to Rádio Universitária do Minho, Tito Correia, an Angolan student with a degree in Economics, who leads SEA, states that it is also the intention to “get to know Portuguese culture more”.

“We want to have a better academic experience. We don’t want to end the third year saying that we only did tests (…) If you talk to an African who took the course here, they won’t say that they had an interesting experience”, he tells RUM.

Also to the University, the president of AAUMinho, Margarida Isaías, recognizes that the student representation body “was not aware of the many difficulties” now described and that, from the moment they began to be reported, contact began for the creation of the structure, a process that lasted a year.

For the student leader, ideally “it wouldn’t be necessary” to have a unit like this, but it is essential to “integrate students into the academy”. “There are many difficulties, even academic ones. They come from other countries, with secondary education very different from ours, and end up not having much support here”, she summarizes to Universitária.