Santa Rita do Sapucaí

Santa Rita do Sapucai is a little town situated in the south of the State of Minas Gerais.The city is known as the "Electronic valley", since it has plenty of electronic industries, and both a technical school and a college which hold courses in electronic knowledge.

It has an area of 350,874 kilometers square.

Famous soccer player Roque Junior, which was in the Brazil's world champions team of 2002, was born in Santa Rita.

Santa Rita has an old freemasonry fraternity, called Loja Caridade Sul Mineira.

It has an estimated population of 33 thousand people.

The town holds the "Festa de Santa Rita" every year in May, which attracts people to the town.

The Carnaval in Santa Rita is also a very celebrated party, in which many groups hold their own ways of amusements, like Bloco do Ride and Bloco dos Democraticos, which are traditional carnaval street amusers. Bloco do Urso is dedicated to adult entertainment with drinking and dancing parties.

History

Santa Rita do Sapucaí is a small town in the southern region of Minas Gerais state (MG) in Brazil. Traditionally, the foundation date of Santa Rita, short name for the city, is considered to be 1825-05-22, when the first mass was held in the chapel built on orders of Dona Genoveva Maria Martins da Fonseca, honoring a promise made by her late husband Manoel Jose da Fonseca. The Fonseca family arrived in the region in the early 1800s and is considered the founding family of Santa Rita do Sapucai.

Location

Santa Rita is located in a privileged site, a few hundred kilometers away from the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, in one of Minas Gerais' richest regions.It dwells between mountains and has a very pleasing weather throughout the year.

Economy

Although located in a rich coffee-growing region, Santa Rita is known for its high technology industries, being home to one of Brazil's foremost electronic, telecommunications and computer engineering colleges, INATEL - Instituto Nacional de Telecomunicações, which was founded in 1965. As to the Escola Técnica de Eletrônica "Francisco Moreira da Costa", the first electronic technical school of the Latin América ( An electronic course which is held with regular high school subjects, being then, somewhat harsh to students) was founded in 1959 by lady Sinha Moreira. The city possesses today more than 110 companies of technological bases.