Sérgio Rezendes, who oversees education and culture at the City Council, closed the last day of the III Literary Encounters by announcing that he wants to “define Ponta Delgada as a privileged center of culture in the Atlantic.”
The City Council member spoke at an event dedicated to books that have proved “a success and which aims to democratize access to culture, fostering intergenerational contact between local and/or national writers, with a diverse audience, including students.”
“We had a full house, full of young people and for that I thank all the participants, from authors, researchers, publishers and cultural agents directly linked to the literary universe of Ponta Delgada. Congratulations!” he said.
Sérgio Rezendes also took the opportunity to explain the “general line of the Strategic Plan for Culture for the decade 2020 – 2030, which focuses on the motto ‘Culture for Education’. This administration is committed to the future, to an intergenerational cultural legacy”.
“There are several municipal projects under development, some examples ranging from Ponta Delgada, the Portuguese capital of culture, to the Literary Encounters, from the PDL Escol@tiva, to the Artists’ Kiosk, in conjunction with the National Arts Plan, from the Natália Correia award, the Teófilo Braga prize or simply initiatives that promote the arts, such as contemporary dance in idyllic locations like Lagoa das Sete Cidades and Jardim Antero de Quental or even actions that focus on Azorean rock, sung in Portuguese, making audiences of young students jump,” he said.
Basically, “the Municipality of Ponta Delgada, with this administration, presents itself as an area for testing public policies and demonstrating the Azorean potential, testing and launching pioneering projects to promote local agents, systematizing information and a value chain based on training, education, research, creation, production, execution, exhibition, dissemination and distribution,” he summarized.
The mayor also said that “the City Council has been moving towards an aggregating public policy, to make Ponta Delgada an appealing destination with decentralized and democratized cultural events, spread across the 24 parishes and combining the seven arts with nature, agriculture, gastronomy and even the sea. To this end, it has partnered with and supported dozens of external cultural agents, representing hundreds or thousands of people, expanding the network of collaborations and creative spaces such as ‘VAGA’, ‘Walk &Talk’, by the Anda e Fala Association or even ‘Tremor’, by Silêncio Sonoro, for example.”
“By radiating culture from the inside out, from the youngest to the oldest, from students to ordinary citizens, we want to continue to contribute to raising literacy and thus promote the well-being of the population and, in a way, be an active part in solving the serious social problems of modern Azorean society,” he said.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks the Luso-American Education Foundation for sponsoring FILAMENTOS.