The President of the Government highlighted the key role that Media bodies should play in strengthening ties between the Azores and the Diaspora, disseminating the "story of success" that has been built in the Regional over the last 40 years of Autonomy.
 
"To a large extent, the goal of disseminating the Region and our Diaspora depends on the work of media bodies," said Vasco Cordeiro. The President of the Government spoke at the opening of the meeting of Media Bodies of the Azorean Diaspora that took place at Capelinhos Volcano Interpretation Centre on Faial Island.
 
This meeting will also be held on the islands of Pico and São Jorge until May 26, involving the participation of Media bodies from Bermuda, Brazil, United States and Mainland Portugal.
 
Today's session involved the participation of several representatives of regional Media bodies.
 
In his speech, the President of the Government stressed that this initiative is primarily intended to disseminate the Azores of today, i.e., the Region that was possible to build in the Autonomy over the last four decades.
 
“In this process of updating the relation between the Azores and their Communities, it is important to highlight the Region we are today instead of being limited to the knowledge of the Region that many emigrants knew in the past," said Vasco Cordeiro.
 
The President of the Government stressed that Autonomy is a "great story of success" in Portuguese democracy, since it was possible to accomplish it in terms of the creation of comfort, well-being, development and progress conditions at various levels.
 
"A Region should be aware, confident and secure about its story of success. However, it must also have the ability to recognise what those who had the responsibility to lead the destiny of our Region in the course of 40 years would have gone otherwise," said Vasco Cordeiro.
 
For the President of the Government, maintaining and strengthening these ties between the Azores and the Diaspora. The Region no longer registers the emigration flows of the past and our Diaspora communities are of second and third generations, who know the Azores "by what has been said and not what they have experienced."
 
"We must be able to uncover new ways and new tools to strengthen these ties, which is based on the affective component as also as on what raises the interest and attention today,” said Vasco Cordeiro.
 
However, the President of the Government added that the Meeting of Media Bodies of the Diaspora aims to pay tribute to the Azoreans who left and to the ties they have always maintained with the Azores, mainly through the Media.
 
"It is a tribute to the success stories of our communities, but we should also bear in mind the stories that were not so successful, because those who had to overcome these not so successful stories are also part of this Azorean heritage - the experience of emigration," said the government official.
 
The meeting that began today is intended to promote the debate on the Media in the Diaspora and the Region. There will be working sessions in characteristic places of several islands in order to promote and encourage discussing and sharing among participants as well as to promote a direct knowledge of places and their potential.