Every journey is a discovery and also a give-and-take
Born in Senegal in 1972 in the southern region of Casamance, Souleymane came to Italy in 2004 with his Italian partner who was pregnant with their first child. The idea was to stay a couple of months with her and then return to Senegal together, where he worked as an official in the Ministry of Economy and Finance. But once he became a father, Souleymane’s
ailing mother from Senegal told him, “I know you want to come back to me but know that when you become a parent you lose your status as a child”. And that is where his life took “a new turn”.
Souleymane speaks many languages: French, English, Italian, and Arabic and speaks other territorial languages of Senegal (Wolof, Diola, Mandinka, Pular, Soninke, Bambara). He has lived in Turin for 18 years with his three children and wife.
He studied at the University of Dakar, Senegal, in the Department of Economics and Management Sciences, then managed to enter the School of Applied Economics where he became an engineer in Economic Planning and a Consultant in Organizational Management. During his dissertation, he took part in a project funded by the European Union, through the Italian NGO CISV (Children’s International Summer Villages) working in Senegal. He was later hired by this same NGO as a consultant for some local funding projects in Louga. As part of his work for CISV, he collaborated with several professors, researchers and fellows at the University of Turin, including his future wife.
“I had never thought of coming to live in Europe, because it was already too much for me to move to Dakar (capital of Senegal)”. He stayed in Italy to be a father. After initial difficulties with language and job search, and after much thinking, he decided to change career fields.
Following his interest in Computer Science, he “transformed himself from an economic programmer to a computer programmer”. He earned a master’s degree in Computer Science and today works as a Microsoft Analyst. He remains, however, involved in cooperation, volunteering for some development cooperation agencies; he works as a representative of his Casamance region in development research projects.
“I am very comfortable in Italy because I perceive that a prepared person can build a future wherever and make that place his home. Every journey is a discovery and also a give and take. I certainly learned things in Italy that I would never have learned in Senegal”.
Souleymane, an ethnic “diola”, became a mediator between Italian and diaspora cultures by becoming vice president of the Italian branch of the African Diaspora Development Institute.
He follows several projects in both Africa and Italy: “Research approaches are very different between Senegal and Italy. In Senegal I was used to applied research, identifying a problem and/or an opportunity and using the results of the research to solve it or to seize the opportunity. Whereas in Italy I think the research I know is more basic and less applied. If I were to change anything it would not be the object of research itself but the tools of research”.
Engineer Coly misses his Casamance and would like to learn more about the impact of migration in Africa but, as he tells us, “never say never”
