On the World Day Against Racism which took place on Monday, the Regional Director for Communities, Graça Castanho, who is undertaking a contact trip in the State of California, USA, visited and met several institutions of great relevance in Azorean communities of this state, including the Luso-American Life Insurance Society, the Luso-American Fraternal Federation, the Luso-American Education Foundation, as well as CISCO, a multi-national company in the field of electronics, computers and new technologies.

 Regarding the Luso-American organisations, one of Portugal’s oldest trade associations in the history of Portuguese immigration in the USA at the service of Azorean communities, the Regional Director had the opportunity to become better acquainted with the areas of intervention of this organisation. Given its prestige in the United States, Graça Castanho invited the Board of Luso-American to visit the Azores in order to find out the possibilities of intervention of this institution in area of services provided to elderly emigrants, who wish to return to the Azores. Graça Castanho recalled that “many elderly Azorean emigrants wish to return to the Azores to live the last stage of their lives. They do not do so, because their sons and daughters, who have settled in the U.S. and Canada, do not allow them to return due to the adaptation difficulties felt by elderly emigrants. In addition, the Regional Director reminded that “it is time for the Luso-American, continuing the valuable work carried out in the U.S., to project such dynamism and professional competence on the islands of origin.”

In Silicon Valley, the Regional Director for Communities visited CISCO, a multi-national company with over 100,000 employees and 16,000 engineers, spread all over the world, and met the Director of Engineering as well as a large group of Portuguese who are doing professional internships, internationally acknowledged, in areas such as electrical engineering, computer science, marketing, project management, etc... The Director of Engineering, a native of Terceira whose mother was born on Faial, presented the international projects with greater impact and regretted the fact that Azorean students are excluded from fellowship programs, such as InovContact which has brought many trainees to Silicon Valley, the space providing more internationalisation and expansion opportunities in the business world. The need to create an Azorean lobby in the USA, with special emphasis in Silicon Valley, was supported by the Director of Marketing, who believes that this is the only way to expand the creative potential of the Azores.

Considering the areas of intervention of CISCO, which works for the largest social networks worldwide, the Regional Director, taking into account the celebration of the World Day Against Racism, recalled that “the urgency to put social networks and Internet at the service of global values that should govern human life, regardless of race, religion or gender. These resources should provide short messages and statements about the dimensions of human life that dignify us.  On this day dedicated to fighting racism, it would be indispensable for social network and internet users in general to have access to messages supporting diversity and human dignity.” In this regard, Graça Castanho recalled that “the education and training of younger generations are not only in the hands of families, school, church or other organisations dealing with youngsters. Today, computers and their applications are part of the educational process with great advantage. New generations will spend more time handling new technologies than actually spending time with their families. Therefore, we must exploit the technological potential by putting it at the service of more just, equal and democratic societies.”