When Beatriz Gouveia Da Silva Santos was 8 years old, her mother bought her a book that told a brief history of every country.

Ever since, “It has been my goal to broaden my understanding of the world,” she said.

Beatriz has attacked that goal as a student and now as a professional — and, just as importantly, has empowered others to do the same along the way.

Born to left-leaning parents in a suburb of Lisbon in 2001, Beatriz herself was left-leaning early in life; once upon a time, she even joined the Socialist Party of Portugal.

“I look back at myself and, although they were on the left, I’m really glad my parents at least encouraged me to read — philosophy, history, geopolitical analysis — anything I could get my hands on,” she said.

Read Bea’s take on two classics of classical liberalism: 1984, Anthem, and Reality

Bea’s natural curiosity and interest in different places led her to appreciate free-market capitalism and how it bridges the differences among cultures and people. But as she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and then a Master’s degree in Political Science, Students For Liberty provided her targeted educational material to kindle that interest.

“The thing is,” she said, “without getting to know SFL, I wouldn’t have known where to start. I mean specifically (knowing myself): what books to start with,” she laughed. “For other people, it might be interactive things like quizzes and online courses, but for me, it was just books.” 

Indeed, in many ways, Students For Liberty picked up where her formal and self-education left off.

“SFL has helped me do exactly what I said my goal was: to broaden my perspective of the world,” she said. “That’s how I found what to read, at first. But then that next step of putting what I learned into action — and meeting people who had done so, having the chance to really talk to them and learn from them. That has been truly valuable in my life.”

One of the projects that meeting students from around the world has inspired? A personal challenge: to read a book by an author from every country in the world. A broader project involved volunteering with a private vegetable garden — and, in the process, putting pro-liberty ideals into practice.

On a still bigger scale, Beatriz and SFL Portugal hosted a table at Lisbon’s Futurália fair — the largest student-based trade fair in Portugal, which attracts more than 20,000 people each year. She helped create a quiz and provided books and merchandise to promote free-market environmentalism.

“[Futurália] was gratifying for me because I could actually see people learning, I could see lightbulbs going off, in real time,” she said.  

With this work on her résumé, Bea earned a job she’s passionate about, working for a cause she’s passionate about.

After hearing of the opportunity from a friend she met through SFL’s Prometheus Fellowship, she became the Chief Communications Officer of We Are Innovation in September of 2024. It’s a global network of think tanks that promote problem-solving innovation. Bea manages their English and Spanish social media and writes articles and press releases.

“When we find a story of how freedom and free markets, not regulatory processes, help people, we want to tell those stories in creative ways,” Beatriz said, “and I love it.”

One such story she helped promote was the documentary How Sweden Quit Smoking. It chronicles how that country’s people brought smoking rates below 5% of the population and achieved the lowest rates of lung and oral cancer in Europe. Not with laws, regulations, or taxes, but with innovation, personal responsibility, and free markets.

“In addition to traditional methods to help people quit smoking, like counselling and awareness — neither of which comes from the state, by the way — in Sweden, a healthier alternative has been developed,” Bea said. “It draws on their cultural heritage of pickling fish. When applied to smokeless tobacco … well, you should watch the documentary,” she said with a chuckle.

“It’s these kinds of stories that you can find if you know a lot about the world and different cultures,” she continued. “I’ve always had an interest in that from a young age … and then to have the chance to act on that knowledge, first through Students For Liberty and now professionally … well, I consider myself very lucky to have this dream job.”