Indigenous people in the Health Actions Tutorial Education Program at a Brazilian university

Abstract

The Indigenous Tutorial Education Program—Actions in Health has been developed since 2010 at the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil, and seeks to train agents capable of collaborating in the improvement of indigenous health conditions and in popular communities. Several indigenous people have passed through the group since its creation. There are also some indigenous peoples who have already graduated and are present professionally in different contexts. Thus, this article presents research that sought to map the group's former members, in the first twelve years of its existence, and to know their current experiences and the period in which they were participants. This is a study with a quantitative and qualitative approach, using documental survey, sessions and semi-structured interviews. There were 46 participants in the group, 39 of whom were graduates, with a great diversity of self-employed courses, regions of Brazil and indigenous peoples. They developed several activities in research, teaching and extension, with interesting relationships with their graduations and with their permanence in the institution. The effects of participation in the group and the relationship between their participation and daily professional practices were noticed, including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.