The Cultural Sector trails two priorities: promoting Brazilian culture and the valorization of the Portuguese language by supporting the spread of its learning.

I - ON PROMOTING THE BRAZILIAN CULTURE

On promoting the Brazilian Culture, the Cultural Sector acts through the following: giving institutional support to prestigious cultural organizations in the local scenery, like the "Miami Art Central Museum" and the "Miami Art Museum", to local art galleries in the field of the arts, to the "Broward Center for the Performing Arts" and the "Carnival Center for the Performing Arts" in the musical scene, being it classical or popular, and in the dance panorama; financial and institutional support to traditional South Florida events like the Brazilian Film Festival and the Press Award; through the Brazil-USA Cultural Center as in the grants for the bilingual schooling project; directly, through the efforts to teach Brazil in the schools, through incentives to the formation of Brazil Clubs in the schools and universities through the dissemination of material divulging Brazilian Culture and through initiatives like the posters contest "Discovering Brazil" for the students of the elementary public schools in Broward County and the essay contest about the Independence of Brazil for students of the middle and high schools of the same county. The Cultural Department also promotes Brazilian artists living in the jurisdiction of the Consulate-General in Miami, and cultural manifestations mainly in South Florida. The Cultural Department publishes the Cultural Bulletin.

II - ON THE VALORIZATION & SUPPORT OF THE LEARNING OF THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE

The Consulate-General of Brazil concluded successfully the negotiations with the organ responsible for the administration of the public schools network in Broward County - Broward County Board of Public Schools - in support of the campaign that the BrazilUSA Cultural Center and a group of parents of Brazilian studies initiated for a larger participation in their children's education through the use of the Portuguese language as one of the communication languages between School and Parents, following the example of the Spanish language and Haitian Creole.

They approved in February 2006 several steps like the translation of its page on the Internet (http://browardschools.com) having the Portuguese language as an option for accessing it, and also translated the "Parent's Guide to Broward Schools" into Portuguese, starting, also in Portuguese, telephone customer service serving the consultations from the parents (Schools' Family Resource Line). In May 2006 a resolution was approved to declare the 7t' of September, the day of the Independence of Brazil from Portugal, as a date to be remembered in the schools.

To mark the recognition of the Broward County Board of Public Schools for its initiatives in the educational area favoring the Brazilian Community, the Brazilian Consul General in Miami, Ambassador João Almino, held a ceremony on the 26th of May 2006, having the presence of the Subsecretary for Cooperation and Brazilian Communities Abroad of the Brazilian Foreign Office, Ambassador Ruy Nogueira. In that occasion, he announced the implementation, in the beginning of the school year 2006-2007, of a pilot-experience for the teaching of the Portuguese Language in the extra-curricular program – “after school” – in the county’s elementary schools and the launching of a public contest of essays about the process of Independence in Brazil, with money prizes for the three best essays among elementary schools, the three best among middle schools and the three best among high schools. The award delivery night was held on the 13th of April last, after the Literature and Language Panel of the II International Congress of Culture and Communication, held at the Broward Ceter for the Performing Arts. The ten best essays among the high schools, and the two best aong middle schools will be printed and distributed for public schools students on the 7th of September of 2007, on the “Brazilian Day”.

Broward County is the biggest in the USA in terms of licensed schools, with 234, as follows: 138 elementary schools, 41 middle schools, 31 high schools, 16 colleges/special technical centers and 38 chartered schools. In terms of enrolled students Broward is the 6th in the country, with a total of 272,692 students. The main characteristic of Broward County is the cultural diversity of its students. About 230 countries and 55 languages are represented in Broward. The Portuguese language, spoken almost exclusively by Brazilian students, is the third most common language in the county. Among students born outside the USA, Brazilians constitute one of the biggest groups, ahead of Mexicans and Cubans.