Last December 7th, 2009, exactly at 6 p.m., over a hundred students of PRECE presented their projects and results in the Rectory auditorium of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) to commemorate 15 years of PRECE. Amongst the 200 hundred people in the place, admirers and cooperators of the program, professors, students, Deans and even the President of the University, Jesualdo Farias, made part in the cheerful event.
The main theme of the evening was: “The contribution of UFC/PRECE to the inclusion and permanence of popular origin students in Higher Education and to the local development of their home communities”. The event started with a brief presentation of the projects developed by PRECE, conducted by its creator and current coordinator of the program in UFC, Professor Manoel Andrade Neto – Department of Organic Chemistry/UFC. Right after that, the audience had the chance to hear fantastic life stories told by members of PRECE who felt grateful sharing their experiences and the importance of the program to their lives with the fervorous audience. José Noberto Sousa Bezerra – Doctorate student in the Department of Chemistry/UFC and one the seven first students of PRECE – was the first to head up to the stage and fill the people’s hearts up with enthusiasm. He was soon followed by Carlos Roberto de Sousa Gomes – Bachelor’s degree in Agronomy/UFC and one of the seven first as well. Maraíza Alves Teixeira – Pharmacy student – was not one of the seven first, but she did really have a lot to say about the importance of PRECE in all of our lives. Last but no least we had Maria Liana Santiago – Librarianship freshman - and her touching story.
After all the speeches, a section of round-table talks was conducted by Professor Manoel Andrade and was constituted by the President Jesualdo Farias, the Dean of Graduate Studies Professor Custódio Luis Almeida, the Dean of Students Affairs Professor Clarisse Ferreira, the Dean of Extension Professor Salvador da Rocha, and the Coordinator of the Center for Community Psychology Professor Verônica Ximenes.
The participants of the round-table talks emphasized the importance of PRECE. The statement of the Dean of graduate studies, Custódio Almeida, called special attention; he affirmed the creation of a UAB-Universidade Aberta do Brasil Center (it basically works like the Open University) in Pentecoste. He declared that he has been working hard in order to overcome the main obstacle to the creation of the center: the proximity of an existing center which is less than 100km (about 40 miles) from Pentecoste. One of the criteria for the creation of a center states that the centers must have more than that distance from each other. The Dean of Extension, Salvador da Rocha, also shared peculiar statements with the audience; he presented the proposal to turn the extension activities undertaken by University students (such as the activities undergraduate students perform in PRECE with the help of the University) into credits in the curriculum, as if they have taken a subject and then acquired credits for that. The President Jesualdo Farias pointed out the importance of programs like PRECE and that he will also help with the creation of a University Center in Pentecoste.
That event was one part of the celebration which commemorates 15 years of PRECE. The celebrations started last November 21th with an event in the local community called Minguá (in Pentecoste), stared by the undergraduate students who came from that region and representatives from all the Cooperative Popular Schools (EPC’s – Escolas Populares Cooperativas) of Pentecoste.
Version by Marcelo Moreira
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