Today, the President of the Regional Government of the Azores, José Manuel Bolieiro, considered that the Azorean society in general is xenophilic, “that is, it likes to welcome foreigners and has no traces of racist harassment”.

“It is necessary to feed this culture by fighting against any manifestation of racism and to promote xenophilia instead of xenophobia”, declared the President.

José Manuel Bolieiro was speaking in Velas in an initiative of the Escola de Integração – School of Integration – project, a cycle of sessions on the life path of immigrants fully inserted in the Azorean society promoted by the Regional Directorate for the Communities.

“It is a citizenship project that helps to delineate our identity and that also includes immigrants who give their testimony of integration, with regard to each of our islands”, highlighted the President of the Government, who was speaking to the press after the session that involved around 100 young people from São Jorge.

The Escola de Integração project consists of sharing first-person testimonies of citizens from other countries who are fully socially integrated into local communities and professionally linked to various areas, such as business, education, the arts, restaurants, sports. or the hotel industry.

Escola de Integração, which started at the end of 2021, has the collaboration of the Emigrants Association in the Azores – AIPA and with the participation of foreign citizens from Cape Verde, Spain, Brazil, Estonia, Italy, France and Ukraine.

Com a realização desta iniciativa, o Governo dos Açores pretende dar a conhecer cidadãos naturais de outros países plenamente integrados na sociedade açoriana e valorizar, em especial junto dos mais jovens, o contributo dos mesmos no desenvolvimento da região.

With this initiative, the Government of the Azores intends to make known citizens born in  other countries fully integrated into the Azorean society and to value, especially among young people, their contribution to the development of the region.