This is the first time I've met Eduardo Firak, and even a videoconference is still a meeting. Covid obliges, and screens leave a very strange impression, quite different from physical encounters. And to be different, it was going to be. Even by videoconference.
Hailing from Brazil, Eduardo is a nugget to be discovered, having settled in Quebec more than five years ago.
He's like a cat, Eduardo, he's had many lives and a hallucinatory journey, and that's a well-measured word, I did say hallucinatory, a life hidden beneath tidy features and a moustache trimmed like my grandfather had his, 1930s style.
I confess I asked him for permission to publish these lines, out of respect. His answer. He has nothing to hide, and that's part of the pride of his career and his transparency.
Between the ages of 16 and 18, Eduardo spent a year on the streets, or to be more precise, homeless, in southern Brazil. At 18, he became a father and took on his responsibilities.
He went back to school at the age of 18 and, with his friends, launched Burucutu, a citizen's movement for ecological awareness, which lasted a decade.
During his bachelor's and master's degrees, he trained with the Centre de Recherche Transdisciplinaire sur l'Environnement et le Développement.
He founded a theater company and produced 26 shows as part of a provincial cultural award, before leaving Brazil for a new challenge: to obtain his doctorate abroad. Subject: " the network of actors committed to sustainable development ", a doctorate he obtained in Quebec.
Eduardo takes on one challenge after another, almost methodically. Those were the first words Eduardo spoke during our interview, and he wasn't lying. A systemic approach to life. Eduardo sees his life, written page by page. A quest renewed every day.
Every day is a new page, a new challenge.
The systemic, understand see things in a global way
to analyze the impacts is part of his life:
" It was my son who opened the way for me, the way of listening, and I think it's an important part of the process. At Ellio, I want to help companies make the socio-ecological transition, and that's how I see myself within the parameters of life. As a human being, I remain very positive, very optimistic, change is possible - personally I think it's possible - by having a clear vision, day after day after day, with this rigor that's in me, this discipline can help us."
He bursts out laughing.
This approach enables us to take a more global view, to know where our weak points are and where our strong points are, where we need to work, and in our case, to have a global vision to target possible actions.
"We don't see what we don't see, and we don't know what we don't know! " clarifies Eduardo.
He discovered this approach when he was 18 with Burucutu, and has refined it through study and practice. Eduardo adds, recalling his first client in the 2000s:
" If you take a factory and a cleaning machine, you can either take it by the shortest route - I'm looking for an effective cleaning product to clean it - and that's the end of it, or you look at the product's impact on health, ecology, wastewater and so on, and then you take a global approach. An approach that even my grandmother understands, no need to use the word systemic to make it clear".
The important thing is to understand that the foundations of this approach are inscribed like a mantra in his life.
"I know how to focus on the essentials, avoid doing non-essentials, focus on tangible effects. Making an impact..."
In just a few words, everything is said and done.
When, to end our conversation and expand my Brazilian culture, I ask her the question:
- Do you have a Brazilian proverb to end on a humorous note? In a long silence, Eduardo analyzes the question and, as if to break the silence, I venture a quick comparison:
- You're just like Pelé. He laughs.
- " No, I'm the kind of Brazilian who's not a soccer fan ..."
What did we tell you? A very special Brazilian who loves snow, winter biking and the Quebec cold. And Gilles Vigneault.
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