Luanda — Angola and Brazil aim to sign a co-operation agreement in the technical, academic, scientific and cultural fields between São Paulo Estadual University (UNESP) and the Angolan Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

For this end, a delegation of the UNESP's experts led by the Brazilian anthropologist and lecturer Dagoberto Fonseca are since Sunday in Luanda to carry out a five-day work with staff of the Angola's National Archives and Institute for Tourism Development.

Dagoberto Fonseca said the teams will be focused mainly in the promotion of heritage tourism and research based on transatlantic maritime cruises between the two countries.

"During our visit, we will conclude the cooperation agreement between UNESP (Brazil) and Angolan institutions (the National Archives and the Institute for Tourism Development), in order to digitise all the documents from the transatlantic traffic and work on promoting heritage and research tourism," Fonseca said.

Dagoberto Fonseca is the scientific coordinator of UNESP's Black Centre for Research and Extension (NUPE) and author of the programme "Recognise, Repair, Reconnect to Continue: memory and history of our people - in the Atlantic world and on land", which involves various ministries in Brazil and Angola's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

His work includes several books of children's literature, poems, scientific works and scattered articles published in Brazil and in countries such as Angola, Mozambique, France, Portugal and Mexico, where, as a writer, he develops themes linked to "Negritude" and the anti-racist struggle.

"To return to my second homeland is to ensure that the unity between our countries is always renewed, not by the will of our politicians, but by our peoples who have deep roots here and who germinated in Brazil. We have to repair the past in favour of a new future for two brotherly countries," Fonseca said. IA/SC/AMP