When we talk about the student movement, some people only remember of their History classes about the dictatorship period and their participation in protests against the authoritarian government. However, few people realize that this is a current subject, and student organizations are still present in politics, as we can see when high schoolers occupied their schools in 2016, or when thousands of people have taken the streets around the country to fight for the right of education this year.
Something that’s also forgotten is the importance of women in this movement. They bring empowerment and have been taking more and more space day by day, showing how politically competent they are. The Centro Acadêmico Vladimir Herzog (CAVH), for example, which represents Cásper Líbero students, is full of brilliant and inspiring women ready to change the world, and Her Campus talked to some of them.
Marina Lourenço
Image Source: Personal Archive
Marina Lourenço is a Journalism student and the co-president of the CAVH, along with Lorena Alves. She’s always kept up with the student movement and social movements in general, especially because of her mother’s influence, who was an activist when she was younger. During high school, Marina already liked reading about the subject, watching videos and talking to people who were a part of student organizations.
As a black woman in a leadership position, she says that this is very important to her, not only because of what this statement represents in the student movement, but also due to the meaning it brings to her personal life. For her, “it’s essential that women do politics, it’s essential that black women do politics, speak for themselves and don’t let anyone else do so”. Marina also adds that, by observing the other student organizations that CAVH gets in touch with, she noticed that only few of them have women as presidents or occupying a high position, which, in her point of view, is a veiled expression of sexism.
She feels very thankful for everything she’s done so far in CAVH. Marina mentions that some of their great achievements were debates between candidates of the 2018 elections, organized with other 12 entities; and an event in defence of the free press and democracy, in September 2019, which gathered important figures in Journalism, Arts, Politics and Law. The student says that “it’s very tiring and demands a lot from us. But when you see the results happening, you remind yourself the reason of everything, why you’ve put so much energy and time on that, and you feel very proud”.
From her perspective, “the student movement is essential in any political context, no matter who’s in power, so treating it as “balbúrdia” is a huge ignorance, because if it wasn’t for it, there wouldn’t be any of the accomplishments students have earned throughout the years”.
Marina believes that her political engagement is also fundamental in her development as a human being. According to her, one of the thoughts that keeps her alive and active inside Cásper Líbero and CAVH is knowing that everything she’s doing is history, and recognizing that is priceless and brings a wonderful feeling.
Giulia Tartarotti
Image Source: Personal Archive
Giulia Tartarotti is on the second year of Journalism and she’s one of the Communication directors in CAVH, but she says that the members always end up doing a bit of everything there. Even though she wasn’t a part of the student council during high school, she’s always liked politics and getting involved with it, so she founded Santa Sororidade, a feminist collective, and that’s where her participation in the student movement began.
When she started studying at Cásper Líbero, Giulia fell in love with CAVH at first sight and wanted to be a part of it right away. So she went to every meeting they organized and was invited to join the group before the end of her first semester. She’s been getting more and more involved each day with the student movement, by exchanging experience with other student organizations and taking part in events related to the subject.
“I think that Brazilian politics relies on the student movement, not only because we are the future, but because it’s clear to me that if we don’t stand up and fight for our education, no one else will”, Giulia says. It seems to her that students are the only ones worried about what’s happening to education in the country, that they are the ones who expose how wrong this is and assemble people to occupy the streets to claim for their rights. “It is the student movement that gathers people, and we also give hope to them. I see a lot of times people who are tired of fighting, and then we show up and tell them that it’s worth it and it will get better”.
Giulia also feels that, by not taking for granted the current situation of Brazil, she’s playing an important role of resisting against injustice, always aiming at the common good. She says: “I don’t care what happens to me, I can only think about the good it will make collectively after. It’s really wonderful to me being a part of history and knowing that, somehow, there’s a bit of me there”.
Bruna Fernandes
Image Source: Personal Archive
Bruna Fernandes is in her first year of Journalism and has recently joined CAVH. Before studying at Cásper Líbero, she lived in Mogi das Cruzes, and there wasn’t a very solid student movement in her school, but the girl was always the class representative and liked taking leadership roles, working as a bridge between teachers, students and the school.
So far, she has only good things to say about CAVH, and the main reason is because “I see a lot of people committed to a fight that should be everybody’s one. When I wasn’t in CAVH, I didn’t see it as something for me, but now I see that I’m also a part of the fight and that I can do my part and everyone else can do theirs as well”.
Bruna believes that the moment we’re going through in Brazil, with censorship and budget cuts in education, is crucial for the student movement, which plays an essential role on fighting for the students’ freedom of speech and right to education. According to her, the current scenario affects students from every social class and education level, no matter if they are from public or private universities. “The student movement is about all of us and about the future of our country, because if we stop and think, the future is ours”, she says.
Bruna also affirms that young people have the possibility to change, go after what they believe, and it’s very gratifying for her to be present in protests and demonstrations that can change our future and go down in history. “We’re young, we have different paradigms. We want to break paradigms, actually. I have the feeling that I’m a part of a movement that wants to change Brazil and turn it into something better for everyone and for the future generations”.
Lorena Alves
Image Source: Maurício Abbade
Lorena Alves studies Journalism and she’s the co-president of CAVH along with Marina Lourenço. Her involvement with politics started when she was in high school, during the impeachment process of the ex-president Dilma Rousseff, which she thought was unfair, so she decided to take action and fight against it. She joined the União da Juventude Socialista, and collaborated with Mídia Ninja, an activist media, by taking pictures of protests. In addition, she was even sent to Curitiba to cover ex-president Lula’s first trial, in 2017.
At Cásper Líbero, Lorena joined CAVH during the Prolifera administration, but she would always question the way things were done there, since it didn’t consider the view of other student entities, and not even Cásper students were aware of how it worked and its purpose. Because of that, in 2017, she and Thaís Chaves founded EntreMeios, in order to rebuild CAVH’s reputation and turn it into an influent student organization once it was. They were elected and have been leading CAVH since then. “We were able to amplify the movement and make it representative for real. In the last two years of our administration, we’ve empowered students’ fight, showed our strength and kept the legacy as a historical entity with national relevance”, says Lorena proudly.
“The student movement has always had a protagonist role throughout the history of our country, it was always students who encouraged the population to take the streets and rebel against injustice”. She says that in the context we’re living, all the strikes and protests that have happened this year are only a response to the attacks that have been made to education. As stated by Lorena, “we have a president that was elected through hate speech, and student organizations were one of the targets, so they will lead and fight against everything that’s happening”.
Even though she’s the co-president of CAVH, being a woman in the political sphere is still very complicated, since women need to prove themselves and the only thing that’s taken into account is their appearance. Lorena says that she’s already suffered from sexism and still does, because we’re in a patriarchal society. “We don’t have the same credibility as men, as there isn’t the pressure over them to look good, what’s considered is their character, not their appearance. But with us, there is a reversal of values, since we’re judged by how we look, and we need to work twice as hard to prove we’re just as capable as men”.