“What is your color?”

A university extension experience in racial literacy

Abstract

This study is the result of an experience      lived during the implementation of an internship intervention project at CRAS between 2018 and 2019, which generated extension activities for professional training, both for academics and professionals in the areas of health, social assistance, education, and social movements. This      project, entitled “What is your color?”, unfolded into two moments, having its implementation started in 2018, through the internship intervention project in social service, and was then constituted as an extension training workshop in 2020-2021. For this      initiative      we had institutional support from PROEX/UFF, together with the Secretariat for Human      and Women Rights of the City      Government of Maricá-RJ, as well as EMAR. The locations made available for implementation of the project were: CRAS – Inoã, EMAR’s digital platform and the School of Government (EMAR – Maricá). Our goal with this project was to promote racial literacy through university extension for academics and professionals in the areas of social assistance, health, and education. As a result, we had 50 students, in addition to four      class facilitators, as well as CRAS users and the technical team of this facility. In short, the issue of race and racism needs to be discussed by everyone and everywhere, especially in places where public policies are implemented. This work intends to make an invitation – a call – to all professionals, civil servants and citizens to think together about different strategies      towards a society free of prejudice and discrimination.