Graça Foster

Yesterday, a woman named María das Graças Silva Foster but known to all as Graça Foster became President of Petrobras. A favourite of President Dilma since 1998 and totally qualified for the post too, so nothing really out of the ordinary so far. But the reason you should take notice is that she joined Petrobras as a 28 year old intern, fresh out of university and she'd gone through the university system a little later than her peers because she had to drag herself out of one of the Rio de Janeiro shanty towns (favelas) first. In fact, she tells of how she had to collect used tin cans and paper cartons when she was a child so that her family could pay for school materials.

This link will take you to an EngLang report done by the BBC on Graça a few days ago. We salute Graça, damn good job done so far, madame.