The College of Humanities and Fine Arts recently welcomed Tiago Araujo, the general consul of Portugal in Boston, to the UMass Amherst campus for the second Lusophone Film Festival and to meet with the college community about international relations, his support for the Portuguese and Brazilian studies program and outreach, among other topics.

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During Araujo’s meeting with HFA Dean Joye Bowman, he emphasized the importance of the direct collaboration between the representatives of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs via the Camoes Institute and the Portuguese and Brazilian studies program at the university. He also praised UMass Amherst for its efforts in educating the younger generations of Portuguese, Cape Verdean and Brazilian-Americans on campus, and for promoting the Lusophone culture in our region.

Araujo also met with undergraduate students in the Portuguese and Brazilian studies program for a Q&A session, during which he discussed Portugal-U.S. relations, international collaborations among the Portuguese-speaking countries and career opportunities for Portuguese speakers in states such as Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where the language is among the most spoken, following English and Spanish.

In his meeting with Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures leadership, he discussed ways to further improve collaborations between the Portuguese Consulate in Boston and language instruction at UMass Amherst, including ways to improve recruitment efforts among the more than 10,000 Portuguese language learners in high schools across the commonwealth.

Araujo finished his day meeting participants of the Lusophone Film Festival and delivered the opening remarks before the audience watched the first film of the week-long event. The film festival was sponsored by the Lidia Jorge Chair in Portuguese studies with money provided by the Portuguese Government, through the Camoes Institute and the Luso American Foundation.

For more information and photos, visit the HFA website.