Brazil Says It’s Setting Up World’s Biggest Cultural Network

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid a visit to Heliópolis, a poor neighborhood (comunidade carente) in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, where he went to symbolically inaugurate 328 Cultural Centers (Pontos de Cultura), which are part of the Cultura Viva (Live Culture) program that brings cultural, educational and citizenship activities to the poor nationwide.
The 328 new centers join an existing 210 centers around the country. "We are just establishing the world’s biggest cultural network based on community needs. We will have 500 of them up and operating by the beginning of next year," declared Celio Turino, of the Ministry of Culture.

The ministry’s budget has set aside funding that can reach up to US$ 81,000 (R$ 180,000) for each Cultural Center over a two-and-a-half-year period.

The centers started in 2004 and the idea is not for the government to set up activity areas, but rather for the community to develop its own activities plans and then seek government support.

The centers have thus been able to offer an enormous variety of activities: music, theater, dance and all kinds of workshops. Some of the centers have been set in Indian villages and even in small towns where descendants of slaves live (quilombos).

Turino reports that at least two American universities, Berkley and Columbia, have expressed interest in obtaining more information on how the program works and could participate in cooperation agreements.

Agência Brasil

Tags:

You May Also Like

In Brazil Investment in R&D Is Still Rare

Brazil's state-controlled oil multinational Petrobras is one of the companies that most invest in ...

Brazilian Minister Sees Long and Hard Negotiation Ahead with Bolivia on Gas Prices

The Minister of Foreign Relations of Brazil, Celso Amorim, said he favors the Brazil-Bolivia ...

Brazil Takes Its Alcohol Fuel Show to California

A delegation from the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade is in ...

Minus 2.83%: Brazilian Stocks Fall for a Second Day

São Paulo’s Stock Exchange (Bovespa) continued on Thursday the decline it had started the ...

Once Again US Says the End of Visas for Brazilians Is Near

In an interview with Brazil’s leading weekly newsmagazine Veja, Thomas A. Shannon, the American ...

Lower Food Price Helps Bring Down Inflation in Brazil

Brazil's Consumer Prices Index (CPI) slowed down to 0.53% in July from 0.74% the ...

National Mêlée

The Brazilian national anthem has a story that involves Don Pedro I, the Portuguese ...

124 People Hold 12% of Brazil’s Wealth. Half of Population Survives on US$ 4 a Day

Brazil’s 124 richest people hold assets totaling 544 billion reais equivalent to 238.6 billion ...

Chí¡vez Declares in Brazil that Neoliberalism Is Dead in LatAm

The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said today, January 19, at ...

Indians Don’t Feel at Home in Brazil

Amnesty International has documented and campaigned against human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples ...