On the 15th and 16th of October Brazilian immigrants, residents from all the continents were invited by the Ministry of External Relations for the second Conference of the Brazilian Communities Living Abroad in the Itamaraty Palace in Rio de Janeiro for a historic meeting of Brazilians in the World.

The 12 temporary representatives elected in the first Conference in July 2008 and the team of the Sub Secretary of the Brazilian Communities Living Abroad and the Alexandre Gusmão Foundation organized this second conference that was a great success.

Representatives of the Brazilian communities from all the continents were warmly received by the Ambassadors Oto Maia, chief of the Sub Secretary of Communities Brazilian Communities Living Abroad, and Jerônimo Moscardo, chief of the Alexandre Gusmão Foundation.

The presence of the Ministers Celso Amorim, Luis Dulci and of the representative of the Minister of Social Security Carlos Eduardo Gabas as well as Senator Eduardo Azeredo, President of the Comission of Foregin Relations of the Senate in the opening of the event on the morning of the 15^th showed the importance the Braizlian government is placing on Brazilians who live abroad.

The Cultural Center Brasil-USA (CCBU) was represented by Adriana Sabino Gloria Johnson and  Maria Inês Dal Borgo. The recently-created Portuguese International Parents Association (PIPA), was represented by the parents of the children of the Ada Merritt school Robson Oliveira e Floriana Martinez. The Portuguese-English bilingual program which was represented by the teachers Adriane Daher e Lenita O’Rourke. The Consul General of Brazil in Miami and honorary president of the CCBU, Ambassador Luiz Augusto de Araújo Castro was on of the consuls that participated in the conference.

The opening session in the morning of the 15th was a great opportunity for the representatives of the government to inform what the Brazilian government has done in relation to various issues of importance for the Brazilian community living abroad.

After the opening, the participants divided themselves into groups across 4 themes: Education and Culture; Health and Work; Consular Services and Political Representation. This format was organized by the MRE in conjunction with 12 Provisional Representatives and was fundamental in facilitating and focusing the discussions.

In the afternoon of the last day the action points of each of the themes were voted on; these will be consolidated in one document later. Through a vote in the closing plenary session there was the voluntary renunciation of 12 representatives. In this way, they will be able to become candidates for permanent representative posts with a mandate of 2 years. The registration of the voters will be made through 3 databases: electoral registry, consular enrollment and registry in the Consulates. Only voters who are registered will be able to vote for the Representatives of the Council.

The election will be in May and the registered voters will have 15 days to vote. North America will have 4 representatives (3 from the US and 1 from Canada and Mexico). Europe, Asia, and South America will have 4 representatives each.

Another important decision was the creation of the Citizenship Councils of Brazilian Immigrants in the Consulates. At the moment, there is a vacancy of the representatives and all those interested and registered as voter can candidate him or herself.

The group of representative from Florida was sizeable and besides Pastor Silair de Almeida (one of the 3 Temporary Representatives of the U.S. (the group included the journalist and promoter of Focus Brasil e Brazilian Press Awards, Carlos Borges, Maria do Carmo Fulfaro, Jorge Nunes, the journalist who owns the news journal AcheiUSA, the teacher Anete Arslanian, the journalists Chico Moura and Al de Sousa, the presenter of Brazilian music Gene de Souza and representatives of the Cultural Center as well as parents and teachers of the Ada Merritt school (Portuguese- English bilingual program).

The group CCBU-PIPA-ADA MERRITT presented a proposal for an agreement for bilingual programs to the Education and Culture at the breakout group. The participation of the teachers Adriane Daher e Lenita O’Rourke, the parents and of Gloria Johnson and Gene de Souza were enriched the discussion and helped push it forward.   

The conference was extremely enriching for us at the CCBU. We learned a lot, we networked and made some great contacts and exchanged ideas and experiences with Brazilians from the world. We will have many opportunities to create innovative and relevant work using all that we learned in these two days at this historic event.

Adriana Riquet Sabino is Co Founder and President of the CCBU