A/HRC/17/38/Add.1 1. National Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation 62. The Action Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation for National Development (2007-2010), implemented by the Ministry of Science and Technology, seeks to ensure the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications through the promotion of science, technology and innovation for social development and social inclusion. Two priority actions are being implemented in this area: the popularization of science, technology and innovation, and the improvement in the teaching of science and the dissemination of technologies for social inclusion and development. Both are implemented by the Secretariat of Science and Technology for Social Inclusion and aim to help economically and socially marginalized populations, inter alia, to bridge the digital divide. The most recent information available indicates that 399 projects for the implementation and modernization of Technological Vocational Centres across the country were supported between 2003 and 2008. 2. Illustrative programmes for the promotion of the use of science, technology and innovation 63. The programme on centres and museums of science, technology and innovation promotes itinerant activities, such as the Mobile Science project, which includes the exhibition of the Brazilian Association of Science Centres and Museums around Brazil. It also seeks to increase and improve the distribution of centres and museums, planetariums, observatories, zoological and botanical parks and other scientific-cultural facilities. 64. Of relevance from a rights-based perspective, the promotion of the use of science, technology and innovation includes scholarships at all levels – from scientific initiation to post-graduate degrees, offered by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, and the Coordination Body for Advanced Training of High-level Personnel. 65. The Digital Culture programme gives visibility and contributes to the circulation of cultural expressions, manifestations and goods supported by the CPP. With the support of the Digital Culture programme, each Culture Point receives a basic multimedia studio enabling it to operate a radio station, register information in digital formats, produce videos, design websites, and use free software programmes. The ultimate aim of this initiative is to establish a digital network connecting all culture point projects nationally, so as to facilitate knowledge-sharing and information exchange. In the Aldea Te'Yikue in the municipality of Caarapó (Mato Grosso do Sul State), the independent expert visited the Teko Arandu do Sul culture point project, where Guaraní indigenous people benefiting from this programme produce videos in their own language, document their own cultural practices, and maintain contact with Guaraní communities in Bolivia and Uruguay, as well as within Brazil. C. The right to enjoy one’s own culture: the case of indigenous peoples 66. Ensuring the cultural rights of persons belonging to specific cultural communities who differ from dominant majorities (Afro-descendent communities, indigenous peoples and other groups) implies providing them with the possibilities for bringing their own individual and collective cultural viewpoints to the shaping of cultural and social developments, while preserving in parallel those elements of their culture that they desire to maintain. It also implies promoting and protecting the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples recognized at the international level, which protect minorities and indigenous peoples' cultures understood as a way of life, including their language, religion and system of beliefs, traditions, customs and other artistic and cultural manifestations. 15