Proud to be Portuguese Canadian - the event(s)

For those Portuguese-Canadians who hail from the province of British Columbia, the name Terry Costa is one a lot of people got to know over the years. In Vancouver, when it came to community activism and participation within the Portuguese community, Terry (on the right) was, and in many ways still is, the poster boy of many initiatives. These days he calls the Azores home, although he still does a lot of traveling back and forth between Canada and the islands.

Presently, through his production organisation Mirateca Arts,Terry has set out on one of his bigger ventures yet when it comes to the Portuguese in Canada. Aimed primarily at Portuguese descendant youth, Terry is the man behind the initiative Proud to be Portuguese Canadian (PtbPC), an initiative that sets out a number of objectives that include: 1.) stimulating young professional luso-descendants, students, their families and colleagues in discovering the Portuguese culture of today; 2.) strengthing links between the Portuguese in Canada and the Canadian social, cultural, political and economic life; 3.) promoting Portuguese culture through the presentation of artists and other cultural agents; and 4.) expressing pride in being Portuguese-Canadian.

A series of PtbPC events will take place in Toronto during a 10 day period, from March 15th to the 25th, kicking off with a ‘not your regular kind of conference’ conference on Saturday, the 17th at the Mod Club Theatre, featuring special guests, among them Portuguese-Canadian celebrity chef extraordinaire, Carmen Correia, as well as presentations, talk-backs and more.

As well, the PtbPC initiative inviting members of his community to submit their “Proud to be Portuguese Canadian” videos to a video contest aimed at bringing greater invisibility to the heritage of Portuguese descendants residing in multicultural Canada. Videos can be sent via email to proudtobeportuguesecanadian@gmail.com or uploaded on YouTube with the link then sent in to the same e-mail address. The person who’s video gets the most views wins him or herself a cool ‘grand’ (aka $1000.00).

The PtbPC project is also a media partner with Canadian Music Week (CMW) and Missão Canadá: Mission Canada that, this year, are presenting a special "Focus on Portugal" session at the Slacker Canadian Music Fest, showcasing a series of music acts from Portugal. This year’s CMW will run from March 21st to 25th and will feature among the 100’s of music acts, a couple of hand fulls from Portugal, including Setubal’s Mazgani, Porto’s masked men Blasted Mechanism, Braga’s Peixe:Avião, among others…

So there you go, if you’re in Toronto come the month of March, this is something worth taking in. Leave you with a couple of fun promotional posters for the event which also contain the website where you can go to get more info.