President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva argued that promoting culture should be a state policy. “If it’s just a government policy, anyone who comes in can take it away. Because taking things away is very easy; fixing things is what’s difficult,” the president said on Saturday (May 30) in Rio de Janeiro during the launch of the Tela Brasil platform, a free public streaming service for Brazilian audiovisual content.

“Culture educates, it opens minds, broadens horizons, and helps us see a little further - things that were previously invisible to us,” he said.

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Lula highlighted that Brazil has reached the milestone of 16,000 Culture Points, projects funded by the Ministry of Culture and implemented by public and non-governmental organizations.

Cooperation

Marking Africa Day, celebrated on May 25, President Lula also outlined recent academic exchanges between Brazilian federal universities and African countries.

In addition, he announced that in June he will inaugurate the new facilities of the Federal University of Latin American Integration (Unila) in Foz do Iguaçu, in southern Brazil.

Lula advocated agreements with Latin American countries and online courses to share knowledge.

The president concluded by inviting the community to participate in a structural transformation:

“Help this country carry out the revolution it never had. The cultural revolution so that this country can finally be in charge of its own destiny, its own history, and its own affairs.”