Gui Lima ’24 presents his CaMD Scholar presentation on Brazilian favelas in Kemper Auditiorium.
Guilherme (Gui) Lima ’24 hosted his CaMD Scholar presentation titled “Pedagogy of the Brazilian Favela: Fighting a Century of Oppression Inside the Classroom” on Friday, March 22. In his presentation, Lima delved into the sensationalization and demonization of the Brazilian favela. By dismantling stereotypes about favelas, Lima portrayed a story of struggle, resilience, and innovation within the community during times of social and political oppression.
Lima emphasized how education has changed the lives of many impoverished students in Brazil, giving them a second chance. He closed his presentation by talking about how hope will create a better future and bring a new light into favelas.
“Hopelessness is despair and immobilism. Hopelessness is to accept the oppression and violence that favelas face every day. In contrast, hope is to fight stereotypes, police brutality, and historical oppression in the form of continued illegitimacy. Hope by itself won’t transform the situation in favelas, but no struggle happens without hope,” said Lima in his presentation.
Being Brazilian himself, Lima reflected on why this topic sparked his interest and how a previous CaMD talk inspired him to explore his own identity more. He discussed how he was fascinated by the opportunity to dig deeper into topics that matter to him and be able to share them with a large crowd.
“I’ve always really liked the CaMD Scholar program. My first [CaMD Talk] was Frank Zhao [’22]’s presentation, where he presented on three generations of Chinese students at Andover and the connections they share throughout history. It was really moving to me. The opportunity to share these topics that connect to your identity with such a large audience and to be able to do so much research and to explore at a depth… was so cool to me,” said Lima.
Lima also discussed some of the challenges he faced when preparing for the presentation. Specifically, how he found trouble when thinking of the perfect way to represent stories that came from real people.
“The presentation was a completely different challenge compared to the paper. The main issue I had was, ‘How do I organize so much research that I did and write something that is comprehensive?’… I knew there was one thing I really wanted, and that was real stories of real people… I really like having real people for what I’m talking about because it grounds the presentation and also honors favelas,” said Lima.
Constantine Krenteras ’24, Lima’s friend and dorm mate, shared his fascination with the rippling effects of educational programs Lima shared in his presentation.
“Hearing about the material effect of implementing educational programs that restructure the narrative of what it means to belong to a Favelados was interesting. [Gui] talked about how they saw these huge increases in residents of these communities being admitted into some of the best colleges and educational institutions in Brazil,” said Krenteras.
Additionally, Krenteras also discussed how this presentation inspired him to think more about actions that can be taken in his own community.
“I’m not familiar at all with a lot of social issues that go on in Brazil, but it’s interesting to see similarities and differences between similar low-income communities in the United States. It’s made me look into and consider more of this kind of education that gears towards discussing the oppression these groups faced, [making] me consider how we can implement similar programs in the U.S.,” said Krenteras.
Similarly, Carolina Tieppo ‘24, another international student from Brazil, offered her reaction to Lima’s talk and how the visuals stood out to them.
“The way he laid out everything, you could tell it was super intentional, and you could tell that he really cared about this presentation, and it’s something he’s proud about. Not only is Gui a great scholar, but he really cares about his home, and both of these things showed through in his presentation,” said Tieppo.
Lima left a word of advice for those who are also interested in applying for the CaMD scholar program and talked about how engaging the process of applying by itself can be.
“I encourage everyone to apply. I think even the application process by itself is so cool because just writing those 700 words, you are forced to consider not only what issues are important to you and what issues you want to talk about, but also, the underlying factors that make up each issue. You get to go in-depth, even from just the application process about asking ‘Why do these things happen, and why am I the person talking about it. Why does this matter to me? Why does this matter to the Andover community?’” said Lima.
