Back where he belongs, says Director Alliance Française de Kotte
His journey with Alliance Française in Sri Lanka coming full circle, newly appointed Director of Alliance Française de Kotte and Alliance Française in Sri Lanka and Maldives Coordinator, Bruno Duparc tells us how a simple voluntary teacher’s position almost 34 years ago has led to where he is now.
“It was my first encounter with Alliance Française and Asia and I fell in love with them both. It was love at first sight,” Duparc says as he paints a picture of the old Alliance Française de Kotte branch in Ward Place whilst sitting in the library of their current offices located down Keppetipola Road amidst French books, magazines, DVDs and other paraphernalia.
After his first posting to Sri Lanka in the late 1980s Duparc went on to travel around the world and work at other branches of the Alliance Française. From Morocco to Brazil and Australia, he travelled as the Alliance – one of the largest cultural non-governmental organisations in the world was in over 130 countries and currently has 832 branches. However it was Asia that really called out to him as he worked in Cambodia, Malaysia (where he met his wife) and Taiwan where he was posted as of last August.
“ I am back in Sri Lanka, back to square one and I wanted to come here. I could have gone to Japan, Singapore or anywhere else but the love for this country made me come back,” he smiles.
With extensive experience managing Alliance Française operations around the globe which Duparc jokingly says is the only thing he knows how to do right, he elaborated on his plans for the year ahead.
He plans to reinforce the course activities they already offer (both online and on-site) and improve the training teachers receive as teaching online requires different preparation methods, evaluation and content. He also plans on collaborating with their German counterpart, the Goethe-Institut and hopefully organising an European Day of Languages which falls on the last Saturday of September with the participation of various European embassies and high commissions.
“To offer the best quality service to the Sri Lankan people, this is a major goal and it is very important to us,” Duparc shares.
“Although the situation does not seem conducive right now, we wish to expand cultural events first around Colombo and also in other cities especially where we are already established such as Kandy, Jaffna, Matara and Galle. We feel that is it is important to foster French education and culture and we have a few universities who have reached out to us to establish programmes,” added France Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Eric Lavertu.
Asked how they have managed with the constraints imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Duparc said that through a team of experts at Alliance Française de Kotte who managed to shift all on-site classes to online, they were able to continue classes and gain students who were unable to travel from far as before. Some 450 students registered for their January intake.
They hope to resume classes by splitting them to half on-site and half online thus implementing a hybrid system to meet certain demands of students. Exams will take place as before however with all COVID-19 safety precautions followed.
Cultural events are an obvious challenge; they will have conferences, films and a few programmes online but admit it is not the same as having a good crowd physically present. The much anticipated Spring Festival held to honour the first day of summer in Europe will hopefully go ahead if the situation in the country allows it.
For more information, visit www.alliancefrancaise.lk