Brazzaville Ceremony Celebrates 2025 Scholars
In early July, the auditorium of the Confucius Institute at Marien-Ngouabi University in Brazzaville filled with applause during the third Soremi Prize ceremony, a now annual fixture aligning with the close of the 2024-2025 academic year and spotlighting excellence in Chinese-language studies.
Top honours went to Succes Gédéon Elenga, whose fluent speech and cultural insight convinced a jury composed of academic staff, Chinese enterprise executives and representatives from the Ministry of Higher Education, according to organisers present at the event.
Soremi’s CSR Strategy Aligns with Education
The prize, launched in 2023 by mining operator Soremi SA, forms part of the company’s broader corporate-social-responsibility agenda and is designed to reward Congolese youth mastering Mandarin, a skill increasingly valued as bilateral trade between the Congo and China surpasses three billion dollars annually (Congo Customs Data).
Speaking at the ceremony, Soremi’s General Manager Cheng Shenghong emphasised continuity, recalling that more than one hundred local students have already secured Chinese government scholarships since the Confucius Institute opened its doors in 2013, a record he described as « tangible evidence of mutually beneficial cooperation ».
Prize Winners Highlight Rising Talent
Three additional scholarships funded directly by Soremi, ranging from twenty to one hundred thousand CFA francs, were awarded to Trésor Joseph Djimi, Elitche Nguila Nkala and Jennifer Mbengue, reinforcing the firm’s message that resource extraction must translate into human-capital dividends for host communities.
The ceremony doubled as the regional final of the 2025 Chinese Bridge language contest, with Doleance Hervé Nsouka clinching first place, followed closely by Rose-Veil Cruise Sadi Koudissa and Thessia Marvelie Maboundou-Makita, all earning the right to compete at continental level later this year.
Performances Showcase Cultural Fluency
Performances of the Mandarin pop anthem “Youth Proud” and the classic “The Sun Never Sets” punctuated the agenda, illustrating the students’ capacity not merely to recite vocabulary but to inhabit nuance, melody and emotion embedded in modern Chinese soft power.
Confucius Institute’s Growing Footprint
Antoine Ngakosso, Congolese Director of the Institute, seized the moment to underscore the academic year’s metrics: 196 candidates sat for HSK and HSKK proficiency tests, and 124 passed, delivering a 63-percent success rate he characterised as “encouraging yet calling for sharper discipline next cycle”.
He also confirmed that twenty top performers will travel to China in October for a four-week immersion programme encompassing language labs, cultural excursions and visits to partner corporations, an itinerary co-financed by Hanban and private sponsors that aims to convert classroom proficiency into professional fluency.
Language Skills and Investment Climate
For investors observing Congo-Brazzaville’s labour landscape, these figures matter: Mandarin-speaking graduates feed talent pipelines for infrastructure, telecoms and energy projects negotiated under the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation framework and codified in the national economic diversification plan.
Analysts at the Central African Economic and Monetary Community note that language compatibility can shave weeks off contract execution, particularly during technical training phases, translating into measurable cost efficiencies for both concessionaires and public-sector counterparts overseeing project delivery (CEMAC Bulletin 2024).
Mining Sector Links to Human Capital
Soremi itself operates the Nabeba-Mbalam iron ore cluster in Sangha department, the only large-scale mine presently in production nationwide, and relies on a multicultural workforce where interpreters remain scarce; grooming bilingual engineers therefore aligns with operational exigencies as well as with state-led local-content policies.
Beyond hard skills, award recipients interviewed stated that studying Chinese offers a lens through which to understand different governance models, business etiquette and environmental standards, insights they hope will prove valuable whether they join the civil service or a multinational joint venture.
University officials are already drafting next year’s curriculum to integrate sector-specific glossaries on mining logistics, forestry certification and digital finance, an innovation expected to resonate with employers scouting graduates able to translate complex technical documents without sacrificing legal precision.
Political Support for Multilingualism
While the Confucius Institute model occasionally attracts scrutiny elsewhere, Brazzaville’s chapter enjoys bipartisan support and collaborates closely with the Ministry of Culture; local lawmakers argue that multilingualism strengthens sovereignty by widening negotiation bandwidth rather than diluting national identity.
As the audience dispersed under the campus’s flamboyant trees, one message dominated post-event conversations: linguistic competence is drifting from extracurricular pursuit to economic prerequisite, and companies willing to finance that transition, like Soremi, are likely to secure both social licence and a competitive edge.
Expanding the Programme’s Horizon
Policy analysts suggest that future editions of the prize could incorporate internships within public agencies managing special economic zones, a step that would knit language training into the broader tapestry of industrial policy and accelerate knowledge transfer in customs administration, environmental permitting and dispute resolution.
