{"id":48945,"date":"2018-11-17T09:41:31","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T12:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=48945"},"modified":"2019-10-28T15:11:29","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T18:11:29","slug":"andrezza-affirmative-action-beneficiary-and-education-advocate-from-rios-mare-favelas-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=48945","title":{"rendered":"Andrezza, Affirmative Action Beneficiary and Education Advocate from Rio’s Mar\u00e9 Favelas [PROFILE]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Por<\/strong>tugu\u00eas<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A resident of the Mar\u00e9 favela complex and graduate in Advertising from the Federal Fluminense University<\/a>\u00a0(UFF), at 23, Andrezza Francisco Paulo has already had a number of intense life experiences. In this profile we’ll learn a bit about her background and the role that education has played in her life.\u00a0Check out the profiles of other affirmative action beneficiaries published on RioOnWatch here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Andrezza was six years old, her father died of cancer. That same year, she moved to Mar\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0with her mother and sister. \u201cThat’s when I realized the world wasn\u2019t all roses,\u201d she recalls.\u00a0Andrezza\u2019s mother, Ana Maria, supported the family by doing whatever work she could, not having anyone to fall back on for help. \u201cShe cried a lot,\u201d says Andrezza. Andrezza began to wonder \fhow she could help her mother, and finally realized that her only option was to get an education.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When she finished middle school, Andrezza took the entrance exams for three technical schools, passed all three, and enrolled in the Advanced Education Nucleus<\/a>\u00a0(NAVE) high school program in Tijuca<\/a>. \u201cThat was the first success of my life,\u201d she says, proudly. In order to pay the tuition fee of R$80 (US$20), Ana Maria had to renegotiate her monthly rent. Never having owned a computer or cell phone, Andrezza enrolled in high school at the age of fifteen.<\/p>\n

The next three years were marked by hard work along with bullying at school, which mainly served children from private school backgrounds. Andrezza had to study harder than the others. \u201cI didn’t have an adolescence,\u201d she says. As one of the only black people at the school, she experienced racism. She recounts something that a student once said to her at school that she will never forget: \u201cPick up your feet so the chains don\u2019t drag on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrezza was her mother\u2019s great hope, but, she says, \u201cit was a heavy burden to bear.\u201d Ana Maria\u2019s dream came true when her daughter started college in 2014, enrolling under Brazil’s\u00a0Law of Social Quotas<\/a>, for which she qualifies because she is black. Studying advertising at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF) without financial aid, Andrezza moved to S\u00e3o Gon\u00e7alo<\/a>, along with her mother, to be closer to school and spend less on bus fare. Recalling her time at UFF, she smiles broadly: \u201cThe professors have more faith in you than you do.\u201d One of Andrezza\u2019s professors offered her a job, which covered her transportation costs. She also introduced Andrezza to other professors, helping her win a scholarship.<\/p>\n

Andrezza focused her academic work on a critique of mainstream media and its portrayal of favela residents<\/a>. \u201cI realized that this was my role,\u201d she says,\u00a0as someone who knows life in the favela firsthand. \u201cI had more obstacles, but I made it.\u201d Even so, she emphasizes that she does not believe in meritocracy: \u201cThat word is unfair and it\u2019s terribly cruel,\u201d she explains. \u201cPeople say that if I made it, anyone can make it\u2014but they forget that I was also very lucky.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As time passed, however, her classes became more difficult, and in September 2015, Andrezza discovered she was pregnant. She panicked. \u201cI thought, what am I going to do with my life? People had always told me I wouldn\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d But her professors believed in her and gave her strength. She returned to Mar\u00e9 with her husband to be closer to her mother-in-law. Andrezza didn\u2019t take any time off and studied at home. When her daughter was born, she began participating in a new mothers\u2019 collective at UFF. On one occasion, Andrezza had a test to take but didn\u2019t know what to do with her six-month-old baby. A professor offered to babysit for her for four hours. \u201cI love the UFF professors,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Despite the help, she eventually realized she would have to choose between being a mother and a college student due to her family\u2019s financial situation. \u201cWe started spending money on things for the house and I was buying less food in order to buy books for college.\u201d Again, professors and students at the university stepped in to help. For six months, each of the thirty students in her cohort paid R$20 (US$5) per month to help her finish her studies. \u201cI had already decided to quit, but I wound up finishing, thanks to them. There are wonderful people in this world.\u201d Andrezza realized that trying to make it alone doesn’t always suffice; it’s necessary to get help from others.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrezza\u2019s experience gave her the idea for an initiative. Her plan is to open study centers in the favela<\/a>\u00a0so that others can have the same opportunities that she had. \u201cI think we need to show favela [residents] that college is for them, too.\u201d Andrezza\u00a0objects to the fact that at universities, nearly all of the authors studied come from the asphalt [formal city], even though there are\u00a0excellent authors<\/a>\u00a0from favelas too. Furthermore, Andrezza notes, there are very few students from disadvantaged backgrounds<\/a>\u00a0at public universities. \u201cI\u2019m all for quotas, but I was the only black student in my cohort. What kind of quota is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Andrezza, the fight is far from over. In fact, it has just begun.<\/p>\n

Check out the profiles of other affirmative action beneficiaries published on RioOnWatch here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas A resident of the Mar\u00e9 favela complex and graduate in Advertising from the Federal Fluminense University\u00a0(UFF), at 23, Andrezza Francisco Paulo has already had a number of intense life experiences. In […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":48983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1284,335,329,1329],"tags":[882,399,400,280,397,1197,577,2858,551,37,103,1189,2400,120,2896,2536],"writer":[2852],"translator":[508],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-interviews-profiles","9":"category-policies","10":"category-solutions","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-academia-x-civil-society","13":"tag-access-to-higher-education","14":"tag-affirmative-action","15":"tag-complexo-da-mare","16":"tag-education","17":"tag-greater-rio","18":"tag-inclusion","19":"tag-instagram","20":"tag-niteroi","21":"tag-north-zone","22":"tag-profile","23":"tag-racism","24":"tag-resilience","25":"tag-sao-goncalo","26":"tag-series-stories-of-affirmative-action","27":"tag-uff","28":"writer-mareen-butter","29":"translator-rachel-fox"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48945"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=48945"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=48945"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=48945"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=48945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}