São Paulo – Since April, Brazilian journalist Lú Braga narrates in her blog her daily life in Lebanon and the country’s day to day. Written in Portuguese, the virtual spaces talks about the Brazilian that do volunteer work in Lebanon, activities promoted by the Brazil-Lebanon Cultural Center, the work of the Brazilian Navy, which is part of the United Nations’ peace mission in the country, but it also cover mild topics such as the type of bikini allowed in Beirut or a bachelor’s party in town, all from the blogger’s viewpoint.
“I just don’t speak about politics, police and religion”, says Braga. The journalist was born in the capital of São Paulo state and graduated in 2003 in Social Communication at the Assis County Educational Foundation (FEMA) in Assis, a city located 439 km from São Paulo. Her professional experience included working in radios, when still attending college, TV channels and communication adviser, in Brazil’s southeast and north regions, and abroad. In Mozambique and England, Lú Braga worked for TV Record.
But it was while she lived and worked for the government of Rondônia state that she researched about the presence of Lebanese in Amazon, where there’s an Arab community. Engaged in projects of social responsibility, the journalist decided to build her blog Na Segunda a Lú Começa (http://nasegundaalucomeca.com) (Lú Will Start On Monday, in a direct translation), in March of this year, to talk about them. But then she decided to diversify the topics, including fashion and beauty, and decided to live in Beirut in April, from where she talks about all this to the Brazilians living in the Middle East.
According to Braga, the blog, at one point, already reached two million hits in a month. The Brazilian says that they go up when she covers topics of social responsibility, for instance, when she reported on a blood donation made by her, when she was involved in a campaign by the Brazilian cosmetics brand O Boticário, when she told about a visit to the chef of a ship of the Brazilian Navy stationed in Lebanon or when she covered exotic topics such as the visit to a convent of nuns.
To Braga, her great satisfaction is to be able to write in the blog about the social actions among the other topics. She is already working to help on the social promotion in the Arab country. In September, she will release a book with Brazilian and Lebanese recipes, written by Brazilian living in Lebanon, with the sales income donated to the treatment of children with cancer in the Arab country. She is also organizing a photo exhibition in September showing the social actions of the Brazilian Navy in the Arab country. The place is yet to be defined.
The journalist has two majors, one in Education and other in Management of Projects, Processes and People, and says that she live off her blog since it went online. She works with sponsorships to some of the posts, which can vary from her visit to a certain beauty salon to the use of a product for the body. But Braga’s plan is to attract to her virtual space the Brazilian companies interested in investing in the Middle East and Africa.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
