“I look at social responsibility as a way in which the education of a student, especially in higher education, has much to do with their connection to the community.” The words of professor Manuel Heitor reflect a feeling that is common among many of Instituto Superior Técnico’s students.
The professor in the mechanical engineering department is responsible for Laboratórios na Rua (Laboratories in the Street), an initiative that promotes a different kind of education, one closer to communities, and encourages volunteering and entrepreneurship among students. The goal, he says, is “to modernize the teaching of engineering, giving engineers the skills that will help enhance their technical skills”, through a learning “guided by the problems of a specific community”.
For this, he has established a connection with the Mouraria neighbourhood, “for its proximity to Instituto Superior Técnico”, and offers students two courses in which the goal is “to develop and apply systems” that can be used to solve the daily life problems of a population. In these courses, issues related to energy efficiency, mobility of people and goods, health and others are addressed, and the participation of the students has been sizable. “Students join in very well. They quickly realize that the easiest part is the technical one, and that the problem is to create something that is really relevant to people”, explains Manuel Heitor. “Of course this gives a great social responsibility to the students, who become involved with such a complex community as Mouraria.”
Similarly, but on the opposite side of the city, operates another group of volunteers – composed of students from Instituto Superior Técnico, but not exclusively. They are members of Just a Change, a non-profit association that rehabilitates houses of poor people and, recently, has dedicated itself mainly to the repair of houses in the area of Serafina, through a protocol with the Junta de Freguesia of Campolide (JFC).
“The founders decided to rehabilitate homes because it’s something that was missing in Lisbon” explains Antonio Rebello de Andrade, a civil engineering student at Instituto Superior Técnico and member of Just a Change. “They wanted it to be a longer project, and repairing houses was a major challenge”, he recalls, after explaining that the association was founded after two friends realized in 2010 that they could obtain far more money than they thought with musical performances in the street. What began as an invitation to dinner, more or less frequent, directed to a homeless group, became the possibility of “creating a fundamental shift” in people’s lives.
More than 100 people collaborate with Just a Change, but the goal is for the project to grow: José, another member, explains that the protocol with the JFC allows them to venture onto “new paths” and create a model that is reproducible in other cities of the country. For the student of civil engineering “being a volunteer should be a normal and important thing for everybody”. “’Just’ can only grow if there is this huge flow of volunteers wanting to take part in the project.”
And they exist. Sebastião, a member of the board, explains that every year they receive more applications than those they can accept. Therefore, he says, they want to grow and create side projects, in order to have twice as many volunteers. But he stresses: “Our goal is not only to rehabilitate houses, but also to make social rehabilitation possible.”
It is this social rehabilitation, by the way, which is present in many other projects at Instituto Superior Técnico. The protocol signed between the school and the União de Freguesias of Santa Iria da Azóia, São João da Talha and Bobadela, for example, is one of them. It is a partnership in which IST fellows accompany science projects in the schools of this area, which is where the Nuclear and Technological Campus (CTN) is also located. The goal is to “raise awareness for science”, but not just that.
“First, this is obviously a way to promote Instituto Superior Técnico at secondary schools, but, more than that, we intend to attract students to scientific areas”, explains Professor Palmira Silva, vice president of the Instituto Superior Técnico. “In addition, and particularly in that area of Loures, there are students who come from family environments that are not favourable to the development of a major interest in science, so we also try to facilitate social mobility through integration.”
Other protocols that are taking action at the level of primary and secondary school have been signed, for example, with the municipality of Loures – a protocol of involvement with the people that live around the Quinta dos Remédios terrain, where CTN is located, and the creation of the Engineering Olympics for young students in the area – or with Siemens. In the latter case, the goal is clearly to promote science among young people, advertising engineering and Instituto Superior Técnico and allowing them access to experiences that they could not have in school.
Duarte Donas-Botto, head of the Student Support Centre (NAPE), the group working in the field with the various schools with which Instituto Superior Técnico has established partnerships, points out that there are many students who do not know what engineering is. “There are many students who visit Instituto Superior Técnico and have no idea what we do here, they don’t know that some areas we have here even exist. They do not know what electrical engineering or informatics are. Our goal is also to help them make a decision, which is as informed as possible.”
Throughout the year, they visit dozens of schools and furthermore receive students coming to visit Instituto Superior Técnico. For that, the work of fellows and mentors – students who volunteer a portion of their time to help newcomers or prospective students of Instituto Superior Técnico – is key. In all these initiatives, what matters is the will and initiative because, as António Rebello de Andrade says, “with will, we can do everything.”
