(MENAFN- Brazil-Arab News Agency (ANBA)) São Paulo – The storeowners of Rua 25 de Março in downtown São Paulo will celebrate on Monday the 159th anniversary of the street with various attractions. March 25 also marks the Brazilian Arab Community Day, which will be celebrated during the festival. The Rua 25 de Março Storeowners Association (Univinco) prepared a program featuring free social actions, a religious ceremony, and cultural presentations on a stage set up especially for the celebration. (Pictured, Rua 25 de Março busy with buyers.)
According to Univinco, from 10am to 4pm on Monday, various booths will offer health checks, recreational activities, and a presentation on the history of Arab and Orthodox immigrants in the area. A stage will be set up on the corner of Rua 25 de Março and Rua Comendador Afonso Kherlakian. This will be the end point of a procession led by Archimandrite Dimitrios that will start at 11:30 from the Church of the Annunciation of the Mother of God, the first Orthodox church in Brazil. It was inaugurated in 1904, and it was built by immigrants arriving in the area but was burned down in a fire in 2022.
On the stage, starting 12 pm, officials and representatives from the Arab community and the area's storeowners will speak and present the history of the Arab colonization. Then musical groups will present Arab folk dances. The Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) supports the event.
“When the church burned down, we were saddened. We prayed there; we attended there. And here [on Rua 25 de Março], people get together – we have breakfast together, both the elderly and the young. It's a cultural part of the fondness we have to keep this story alive,” says Univinco Director Jorge Dib, a second-generation descendant of a family made up of Syrians and Lebanese.“Since the Univinco was founded, we celebrate the day, we celebrate our ancestors to keep the Arab culture alive, which is so important – it's in our blood,” he says.
ABCC Director Arthur Jafet says 25th March is a very important day for several reasons, including the celebration of the history of Arab immigration.“It's a very significant day, not only for honoring Brazil's first Constitution of 1824 but for representing the street which is to this day the largest and the busiest commerce hub in Latin America, as well as representing the history of Syrian and Lebanese immigration in São Paulo from its beginning in the late nineteenth century,” he says.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
©Cris Faga/NurPhoto/NurPhoto via AFP
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