PROFILE OF THE BRAZILIAN MINISTER OF CULTURE,
JUCA FERREIRA
Born in the State of Bahia, the sociologistJuca Ferreira dedicated his Professional career to political engagement and to cultural and environmental actions.He began his political life as a student leader and was elected president of UBES – União Brasileira dos Estudantes Secundaristas[Brazilian Union of High School Students] on the very day that the government issued Act of Establishment #5 (AI-5), a landmark legislation from the toughest period of military dictatorship in Brazil.Ferreira took part of the resistance movement that opposed the military regime, living in the exile for nine years in Chile, Sweden, and France. During that period, he studied Latin Languages at the University of Sockholm, Sweden, and graduated in Social Sciences by Paris I University – Sorbonne, France.
Back toBrazil, he worked as special advisor for Bahia State Cultural Foundation and developed several projects in the field of Culture. In the beginning of the 1990s, he participated in the creationof one of the first art-education projects in Brazil, theAxé Project, focused on children and teenagers in a social risk situation. Ferreira included the cultural aspect into Axé’ssocio-educational activities, which is todayconsidered one of the project’s most important features.
In 1981, he became an activist in the environmental area and in 1988 he joined Brazilian GreenParty. During the 1990s he was Secretary for the Environment in the city of Salvador, the state capital of Bahia, and president of the National Association of Municipalities and the Environment (ANAMMA). He also took part in the establishmentof one of the first socio-environmental movements inBahia – SOS Chapada Diamantina. For five years he acted as a civil society representative in National Agenda 21, then joining the group that prepared Agenda 21of Culture in Barcelona (Spain), in 2004.
From 1993 to 1997 he developed one of the most acknowledged socio-environmental initiativesin Bahia, Jardim das Folhas Sagradas [Garden of Holy Leaves], an eco-anthropological project involving communities fromCandomblé yards. He was vice-president of Movimento Onda Azul[Blue Wave Movement] Foundation, whose president was the musician Gilberto Gil.He was twice elected councilman of Salvador municipality, from 1993 to1996and from 2000 to 2004.
In 2003, during his last term of office, he wasinvitedby minister Gilberto Gil to take over the position of Executive Secretary (Vice Minister) for the Ministry of Culture, where he stayed during the whole period of Gilberto Gil’s administration – five years and a half. In August 2008, Ferreira was invited by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to be the Brazilian Minister of Culture.