Created in October as part of Unicamp's Human Rights Executive Board, Caiapi - Advisory Committee for Academic Inclusion and Participation of Indigenous Peoples - was created to better meet the specificities of indigenous peoples, which have become clearer since their arrival.
“Students arrive from very distant regions of the country, enjoying less support from friends, relatives and family. Furthermore, as they belong to different peoples, they have specific customs that need to be respected in order to guarantee their well-being and diversity in university relations”, ponders Néri de Barros Almeida, Executive Director of Human Rights (DeDH).
The newest instance of DeDH, founded following a decision by the University Council (Consu), is an offshoot of Cader, the Racial Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee, responsible for university policy on attention to the black community and, in principle, also indigenous.
“Especially during the pandemic, it became very clear that it was important to have a commission for indigenous issues due to the quantity and specificity of the demands of our indigenous students”, declared Alik Wunder, professor at the Faculty of Education at Unicamp and president of the new commission.
Caiapi's objectives are to help the university in the formulation and implementation of policies that contribute to the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the academic environment.
“One of our work fronts is academic monitoring, student retention, thinking about forms of inclusion and how they can occur more effectively”, details Wunder.
Vice-chaired by Artionka Capiberibe, professor in the Anthropology department at Unicamp, the committee is made up of teachers, technical administrative staff, undergraduate and postgraduate students, representatives of Unicamp's technical colleges, members of organized civil society and collaborating researchers . Among the external guests are Edson Kaiapó, professor at the Federal Institute of Ilheus (Bahia); Daiara Tukano, master in Human Rights and visual artist and Gersem Baniwa, professor at the Federal University of Amazonas.
According to Wunder, the commission has intense participation from indigenous students. “The collective of indigenous academics at Unicamp has done important work,” she comments.
Unicamp's indigenous entrance exam was approved in 2017 and had its first edition the following year. Currently, the university has around 150 indigenous students from 33 different peoples.
“We have great ethnic, linguistic, schooling and contact history diversity. Some were literate in their own language and learned Portuguese later. There are also those who have never lived in villages, children of indigenous people who moved to the city”, says Wunder about the profile observed at Unicamp.
Wunder, who has been working on extension and research projects around indigenous themes since 2013, says that the policy aimed at these people within the university is still in its initial phase and needs improvement.
original article published on the website of the Executive Directorate of Human Rights.
