The Regional Secretariat for Parliamentary Affairs and Communities, through the Regional Directorate for the Communities, is launching the sixth season of the “Diaspora Talks” initiative, this time dedicated to new Azoreans, i.e. third-country nationals living in the archipelago, who are fully integrated into Azorean society.

After the first five series of this activity, dedicated successively to the Houses of the Azores, members of the Azorean Diaspora Council, community-based social organisations, media outlets serving the Azorean communities in the United States of America and Canada, and biographical interviews with personalities born in the Azores who have made a name for themselves outside of Portugal, the “Diaspora Talks” now features the life stories of citizens from different countries, who have chosen the Azores as their home.

Paulo Mendes, co-founder and first president of AIPA – Association of Immigrants in the Azores, will be the guest at the opening session, scheduled for April 15 at 6 pm. He was born in Cape Verde and has lived in the Azores since 1997. He holds a degree in Sociology and a postgraduate degree in Social Sciences from the University of the Azores. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University Institute of Lisbon. He was a Ponta Delgada City Council member responsible for Culture and Social Affairs and founder of the Platform of Representative Structures of Immigrant Communities in Portugal.

The next two guests will be his two successors in the presidency of AIPA, namely Cristina Borges, a native of Angola, at a session to be broadcast on April 22, and Leoter Viegas, a native of São Tomé Príncipe, on April 29.

This new cycle of sessions, like the previous ones, will be broadcast live on the Communities Azores page, the official presence of the Regional Directorate for the Communities on Facebook, every Monday at 6 pm in the Azores, lasting approximately 30 minutes.