Portal da Açorianidade

This week, in Ponta Delgada, the Regional Government of the Azores has signed two cooperation protocols that ensure the functioning of the Official Portuguese School of Bermuda. The protocols were signed by the Regional Directorate for the Communities with Associação Cultural Portuguesa da Bermuda, which manages the Portuguese language school, and with Vasco da Gama Club, which provides its facilities for this ongoing education. Both documents stem from the Azorean executive and these associations’ common interest in preserving the Portuguese language and the Azorean cultural identity in Bermuda. In the case of Associação Cultural Portuguesa da Bermuda, created in 1970, the protocol provides for the allocation of an annual sum, which this year corresponds to 8,474.00 euros, to support the activity of its Official Portuguese School of Bermuda. The Government of the Azores has been the main active partner of the only school that ensures the official teaching of the Portuguese language in this British overseas territory, with financial support amounting to more than two hundred  thousand euros over the last two decades. With regard to Clube Vasco da Gama, the oldest institution of the Azorean community in Bermuda, founded in 1935, the protocol is intended to ensure its logistical support for the installation of the Portuguese school. The two protocols were signed by the Regional Director for Communities, José Andrade, and by the joint president of the Portuguese Cultural Association of Bermuda and the Vasco da Gama Club, Richard Ambrósio. Bermuda is a British overseas territory located in the Atlantic Ocean, whose capital is Hamilton, consisting of a main island and a set of small islands, in which a considerable community of Azoreans and their descendants live. These islands were the third major destination for the Azorean emigration from 1849 onwards, resulting in a community predominantly of São Miguel origin, which now represents almost a quarter of the population of Bermuda.