Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) Lee Satterfield will travel to Brazil from July 7-12, 2022. The Assistant Secretary will promote entrepreneurship, democracy, and human rights through people-to-people exchanges and public diplomacy programs in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where she will engage students, civil society leaders, and alumni of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs.
In São Paulo, the Assistant Secretary will inaugurate a new EducationUSA center, the official source on U.S. higher education for international students, with the Brazilian educational group ETAPA to promote international student mobility. The Assistant Secretary will also meet the U.S. and Brazilian participants of the pilot Youth All-Stars Abroad exchange that empowers young women through sports diplomacy.
In Rio de Janeiro, she will open the first in-person American Film Showcase workshop since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with American award-winning writer and director Alrick Brown, Brazilian-born filmmaker and visual artist Ivete Lucas, and 12 local filmmakers. The American Film Showcase uses film to bring people from diverse communities together to engage on key issues of the day. She will also visit the Valongo Wharf, which consists of the remains of a significant 19th Century landing point for enslaved Africans, and one of eight historic sites in Brazil whose conservation is supported by the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation.
Additional engagements will focus on higher education exchanges, English language programs for underserved communities, and women's entrepreneurship.
