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Expand Cultural Understanding with Culturas

 “Brazil
has so much more to offer than just soccer, and we want both Norway
and the rest of the world to see that” says the founder of
Culturas, Larissa Costa

One
of her wishes is for people to stop seeing cultures from only one
angle as that may raise stereotypes. In an interview with TNP, she
said that she wants to break and remove the stereotypes about Brazil
and show people the reality. This is one of the reasons she founded
Culturas, a company that specializes in assisting Norwegian companies
and organizations that are setting up operations in Brazil and other
Portuguese-speaking countries or that already in activity there.
Culturas aims to expand cross-cultural understanding between
Norwegian and foreign cultures.

She
believes that if everyone would try their best to learn and
understand each other’s culture, there would be less culture-shock.

While
some things are seen as normal in Brazil, it might not be so in
Norway, and vice-versa, this can be confuse and hard to the ones
that are meeting the other culture for first time. For example In
Brazil we are flexible in timing. You can for example tell a person
to come at 2 pm but they show up 6 pm. But in Norway two O`clock is
two O`clock. To understand each other cultures is very important
anyone that is part of this interaction, even if you are just a
tourist, to build knowledge of the other culture will
intensify your experience, adds she.

“The
strategic importance of Cross-cultural Competence is nowadays
undeniable, on several levels”, says Maria Isabel Macieira, head
of Communications at Culturas. When one comes across such differences
with no prior training, it tends to lead to surprise, at best, and
frustration, at worse. This is what disturbs cross-cultural
relationships.

Culturas
is happy for providing information about Brazil&Norway relations,
while these two countries are closer and closer, not just on
diplomatic or in a business level, says Larissa.

More
Opportunities

Larissa
says the idea came from the service that founder and CEO Larissa had
already been providing to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
where she trained diplomats being transferred to Portuguese
speaking countries. Combined to the tightening of the relationship
between Brazil and Norway, she noticed a true need for similar
training to the corporate sector. 

“Brazil
has started producing so much oil” she says.

The
acknowledgment of what these two countries have in common made her
realize that they can as well cooperate if they communicate well,
which is why Culturas also improves communication and promote the
development of business relationships between Norway, South-American
and Portuguese speaking countries in Africa.

Focuses
on what connects Norway and Brazil


Even though
other Portuguese speaking countries are involved, Culturas focuses
mostly on the relationship between Norway and Brazil. Larissa
encourages everyone to visit their Facebook page and website. Through
Culturas’ blog on its webpage (
www.culturas.no)
and its Facebook page (CulturasAs), Larissa and Maria Isabel
regularly post aspects of Brazilian and Norwegian culture, or just
interesting facts that connect in some way these two
countries. Also histories of Brazilian-professionals living in Norway
and of Norwegians that live and work in Brazil are available.

Culturas
is pleased to offer other cultural angles of Brazil and Norway, to
people of these two very different cultures, to a better
understanding of each other, fleeing stereotypes. Larissa and
Maria Isabel are delightly surprised with its popularity and
encourage you all to visit their pages. 

Are online drugstores permitted

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