Brazil: Public Health, Race, and Human Rights

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"My experience at SIT helped me understand various aspects of health in a different setting. SIT support, especially through the Independent Study Project, enabled me to begin an exploration of Afro-Brazilian adolescents' self-images. After my Fulbright, I aspire to establish a nonprofit organization to serve low-income African-American preteens."

Kyasha Moore, Spelman College, SIT Study Abroad Fall 2007 student
2009 Fulbright Recipient

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Examine Brazil's health care system in the context of racism, poverty, and social exclusion.

This program explores emerging health care issues in Brazil, particularly those related to the country's African Diaspora population, which comprises approximately 50 percent of Brazil's population.

Particular attention is spent studying traditional Afro Brazilian healing practices, especially those rooted in the Candomblé spiritual belief system, on which many rural and urban communities still rely. 

Immersion in Bahia
The program is based in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia and the largest city in the Brazilian northeast. Of Salvador's 2.8 million residents, approximately 80 percent are of African descent, making Salvador an ideal base from which to explore issues of public health, community welfare, and social justice.

Students also have educational excursions to rural communities outside Salvador where they engage in health care projects beneficial to local community members. Homestays with Brazilian families from very different socioeconomic backgrounds reveal the vast differences in Brazilian daily life.

Engage with academics, professionals, and community leaders
Students learn from physicians and nurses, government health officials, political activists, international NGOs, multilateral agencies such as the United Nations, urban and rural residents, herbalists, and Candomblé healers in the Brazilian northeast.

Focus on issues of access and inclusion
Brazil is the most populous Latin American country and home to the world's largest African Diaspora community. While the country's public health policies have achieved success on several issues, including in AIDS prevention, the health care needs of its most impoverished people currently are not being met. As a result, Brazil's government has sought innovative approaches to reach its underprivileged citizens. Many Afro Brazilians and other Brazilian communities in the periphery also have developed alternative health care methods that often draw upon spiritual practices and natural remedies.

Students examine health care policies and realities in the region while also studying Portuguese.

Brazil Public Health, Race, and Human Rights Academic Director Damiana de Miranda was recently awarded the Prêmio Mulher Guerreira Maria Felipa along with other black women in Brazil in recognition of her activities to improve the social inclusion of Afro Brazilians. The prize was created by the City Council of Salvador to celebrate Black Women’s Day. Congratulations, Damiana, on this great honor and for all the public health and community support you extend to others.