Suicide was the theme of the forum that took more than 900 people to the Unicamp Convention Center on Wednesday (8). In addition to the registrants who filled the space's auditoriums, more than 700 people were on the waiting list. Many of them followed the event live on the internet. Some numbers may help explain the broad interest in the forum. According to the World Health Organization, more than 800 people take their own lives every year, with suicide being the second biggest cause of death among young people between 15 and 19 years old. In addition to being high, the numbers are growing and even more frightening when unsuccessful attempts are taken into account.
Promoted by the Population Studies Center “Elza Berquó” (Nepo) at Unicamp, in partnership with the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap), the debate "Suicide - Dis/compasses of life: numbers, acts and demands", made part of the programming of the Permanent Forums, of the Directorate of Culture (DCult) of the Dean of Extension and Culture (Proec).
“Let’s talk here about life. This is our theme: life with its challenges, suffering, pain, but also with solidarity, responsibility and affection. Our objective in this forum is an interdisciplinary dialogue that can provide a humanistic perspective to address the issue of suicide and suicide prevention. We seek to reopen dialogue, break down barriers and break silence and prejudice”, said Sandra Garcia, researcher at Cebrap, anthropologist and doctor in Demography. Also on the table were rector Marcelo Knobel; the coordinator of Cocen (Center and Center Coordination), Ana Carolina Maciel; the coordinator of Nepo, Alberto Augusto Jakob; Nepo researcher, Margareth Arilha; and the director of DCult, Carmen Lúcia Rodrigues Arruda.
Margareth Arilha recalled that the development of the theme of suicide by Nepo was a demand from demographer Elza Berquó, one of the group's founders. “A year ago she warned us: we need to understand what is happening to this civilization, to our humanity. Why does suicide take such proportions in the contemporary world?”, she recalls.
The rector of Unicamp, Marcelo Knobel, read an excerpt from the book “Normal Adolescence”, written in 1971, by his father, the psychoanalyst Maurício Knobel, who played an important role at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) at Unicamp:
“Isolated adolescence does not exist. As there is no such thing as being disconnected from the world, not even to become ill. Pathology is always an expression of the individual's conflict with reality. (...) Thus we see adolescents of either sex in conflict, in struggle, in a marginal position in the face of the world that limits and represses them”
Next Forum
The Unicamp Permanent Forums, created with the aim of promoting rapprochement between academic thought and society, celebrate their 15th anniversary in 2018. Next Tuesday (14), the Forum will address the topic of autism, organized by professors Kelly Cristina Brandão da Silva, from the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) and Daniel Omar Perez, from the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) , under the title: “Are we living in an autism epidemic? Research, experiences and challenges”. Registration can be done via link.
