Brazil Inducts First Indigenous Diplomats into Foreign Service

Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sworn in its first indigenous diplomats, Marcelo Kariri Menezes of the Kariri people and Idjahure Terena of the Terena people. The two men were inducted on November 4 in Brasília and will now begin the 2026–2028 Diplomatic Training Program at the Rio Branco Institute. They join a cohort of approximately 60 students, which also includes the first Quilombola diplomat and the highest proportion of women in the program’s history. This intake follows the expansion of the ministry’s Scholarship Program for Diplomatic Careers, which now provides support to indigenous candidates, low-income women, and individuals with disabilities. Menezes holds an engineering degree and an MBA, while Terena is a doctoral candidate in social anthropology. Their entry into the diplomatic corps follows decades of historical exclusion for these groups within the Brazilian state.