ProGente serves the Brazilian American community by providing cross-cultural programming, including ESL classes for adults, Portuguese as a heritage language for children, an Orientation to American Culture program, and a newer financial literacy initiative. Staff emphasize that improving participants’ English skills builds confidence and supports both daily life and longer-term goals, with effects that ripple outward to students’ families and broader social networks.
A UTO grant played a key role in sustaining the organization, helping partially fund the program director’s salary and enabling ProGente to keep all of its programs running online through the pandemic. The program director’s own story reflects the organization’s mission: after moving to the U.S. and connecting with ProGente, she rose to lead the organization herself, and now finds purpose in helping others follow a similar path toward success.
