Portuguese Seminar Report

Last week we conducted the first Insight Seminar in Portuguese. I am pleased to report the seminar was a resounding success! During the feedback session (and really throughout the entire seminar), the participants related their interest and enthusiasm for the material. They told us it was some of the most difficult work they had ever had to do, but they believed it was well worth it. Several participants implored us to continue to conduct the seminars in Mozambique. They believed these seminars could transform the economy and standard of living for the entire country, if enough people could participate. It was interesting to see 1) how difficult working with this material really was for the participants, and 2) how quickly they were able to absorb the new concepts and information presented.

I must emphasize that the participants in this seminar included a wide range of very intelligent people. Education levels and occupations ranged from elementary education to trained professionals. The issues encountered were not intellectual, but cultural – the concepts and ideas we discussed were, in many cases, literally brand new. This was expected; after all, how can someone be familiar with concepts that are not part of their culture? Yet the participants, once they understood the basic principles we were presenting, were eager to learn and develop these ideas. Moreover, they did not seem to evidence any need to conform to western idioms regarding the implementation of these principles. That is, they planned to apply these principles as Mozambicans within the context of Mozambican society.

This is not to say we did not encounter obstacles during the seminar. In fact, part of our goal was to identify issues in translation and communicating content, and we encountered both. Our translation was done very well, but the material was translated into European Portuguese, which is noticeably different from Mozambican Portuguese. During the seminar, we were able to identify several vocabulary differences which we will address as we update the seminar material. In addition, we discovered which presentation methods were particularly effective as well as what impeded communication of our basic concepts.

Our third seminar will be held in South Africa, where the seminars were first developed. This seminar will be in English, and should give us a chance to apply some of the lessons learned during the first English seminar. Given the success of the previous two seminars in Mozambique, we are eager to see how the material is received in its place of origin.