INTERVIEW: THE PROTAGONISM OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE RIBEIRÃO PRETO’S CITY, SP

Abstract

The interview focuses on two women leaders in education, who work in the non-governmental organization Casa da Mulher - Study and Research Association of Ribeirão Preto, in the state of São Paulo. They are: Adria Maria Bezerra Ferreira, retired teacher, current president of the House of Women, teacher, sambista and activist of the Black Movement. Maria Helena Ramos de Oliveira, artist, master in Afro-Latin American and Caribbean Art by the Graduate Program in Integration of Latin America at the University of São Paulo, writer and poet. At age 75, Maria Helena Ramos de Oliveira and Adria Maria Bezerra Ferreira remain in the cultural scene of Ribeirão Preto producing narratives that are not restricted to the local context, because for decades they have participated in the organization of women's movements in the city. They are cultural educators who experience the intersections of class, race-ethnicity, gender and especially generation, because they participate with the black youth of the contemporary poetic mobilization in the meetings of Sarau Preto. The interviewer is Maria Elisabeth Rosa dos Santos, pedagogist, supervisor of the Municipal Department of Education of Mauá, São Paulo and member of WLE since 2013, when she represented Brazil at the 4th WLE Conference in Apam, Ghana, Africa. The meeting brings together two cities in the state of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, known as the Brazilian California and Mauá, a municipality in the metropolitan region, which received the UNESCO Educator City seal in 2013.