NEWS | Azorean Councillors featured in eighth season of “Diaspora Talks”
The “Diaspora Talks,” a series of biographical interviews in online format, premieres another season: its eighth season. It will introduce the Azorean Diaspora Councillors, the active voices of global Azorean identity, who were elected for the 2025-2029 term.
The first episode is set to air this Sunday, January 25, at 6 p.m., featuring Councillors Sofia Quintana from Uruguay and Régis Gomes from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Promoted by the Regional Secretariat for Parliamentary Affairs and Communities, through the Regional Directorate for the Communities, this initiative aims to bring the Azores closer to its emigrant communities in the diaspora and to immigrants residing in the archipelago, while also encouraging the participation of the general public.
The eighth season brings together the 17 elected Councillors, distributed across the geographical areas of Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, the United States of America, Uruguay, mainland Portugal and the rest of the world. The main change this season is the broadcast day, with sessions now taking place on Sundays at 6 p.m. instead of Mondays.
The upcoming episodes, following the planned scheduled, will feature Marcos Pinheiro, from Santa Catarina, and António Arruda, from São Paulo (February 8); Marcos Borba, from Rio de Janeiro, and Vânia Silva, representing the remaining states of Brazil (February 22); Ricardo Ambrósio, from Bermuda, and Danny de Melo, from Massachusetts (March 8); David Pimentel and Katherine Soares, representing the remaining states of the United States of America (March 22); Zeto Carvalho, from California, and Esmeralda Cabral, from British Columbia (April 5); Matthew Correia, from Ontario, and Paulo Cabral, from Manitoba (April 19); and, lastly, Carlos Almeida, representing the remaining provinces of Canada, Rui Silva, representative of Mainland Portugal and Madeira, and Tiago Domingues, representing the rest of the world (May 3).
The first three of seven seasons of “Diaspora Talks” aired in 2021 and were dedicated, successively, to the Houses of the Azores, the Azorean Diaspora Councillors for the 2021-2025 term, and the media outlets serving the Azorean communities in the United States and Canada. The fourth season kicked off in 2022 with community social service organisations, and in 2023, the initiative featured Azorean personalities who have distinguished themselves outside Portugal.
In 2024, “Diaspora Talks” introduced “new Azoreans,” i.e. third-country nationals residing in the archipelago. The seventh season featured fifteen Azorean descendants residing in Brazil, Bermuda, the United States of America and Canada, who have made a name for themselves in various fields of activity.
As in previous editions, the interviews are broadcast on the “Azorean Communities” Facebook page, with replays on YouTube, and presented by the Regional Director for the Communities, José Andrade.
GRA/RÁDIOILHÉU
