Mission:

The institutional mission of BPARPD is to contribute to the socio-cultural development of the local community so that they may be able to accompany the rapid economic, social and cultural changes that are brought about by the Knowledge Society and thus ensuring that the local people develop the individual skills providing them with greater autonomy and permitting their increased participation in society. BPARPD provides an appropriate and varied range of services and activities in the education, information, culture and leisure fields for this purpose.

Goals:

- Provide for the full social integration of all members of the community, taking on the role of pluralist spaces where people can meet and exchange ideas, debate and reflect, criticise and actively participate;

- Foster literacy as the capacity to understand, interpret and pass judgement on the processes and meanings of the communicational environment, highlighting the complementarity between document media (handwritten, printed, audio-visual, multimedia);

- Provide the conditions that permit the self-instruction of individuals, making available the resources for lifelong learning, giving special focus to the use of communication and information technology;

- Supply relevant and up-to-date information, swiftly and in-depth to anyone asking for the same, using all the information sources available in the local, regional, national and international arenas;

- Take up the role of a true cultural hub, fostering the increased enjoyment of contemporary culture giving a prominent position to Portuguese culture in general and the culture of the Azores in particular, especially in the field of reading and writing and associated interventions.