Overcoming Barriers: Team from BAHIANA Recognized for Groundbreaking Work in Brazil

Dr. Milena Lisboa and graduate student Valdemar Neto were recognized by the conference committee for their partnerships with marginalized communities in North Eastern Brazil. Together with interdisciplinary team members Aidê Nunes da Silva, Selena Márcia Dubois Mendes, and Maria Antonieta Araujo at BAHIANA School of Medicine and Public Health back in Salvador, they have successfully adapted and implemented the UBC Health Mentors program in territories marked by poverty, food insecurity, and violence.

With the help of HTLVida, a patient association that promotes quality and life and defends the rights of people living with HTLV, the team has recruited patients living with the debilitating virus to serve as Health Mentors. In the first year, all meetings were held at the university and Dr. Lisboa was determined to find ways for meetings to place in the mentors’ home communities. With financial support from a government grant through the Brazilian research agency called CAPES, Dr. Lisboa and her team worked with the mentors to develop maps, identify safe zones, appropriate meeting places and available community resources that made it possible for meetings with students to take place in the community. These became the pedagogical tools for learning about the complexity of the social determinants of health shaping health care.

In their presentations, they inspired many at the conference to think critically and creatively about societal barriers to diversity, equity and inclusion. As experts in their own lives and communities, community members hold the keys to creating safe learning environments where students can learn directly in and from communities where care is needed most.

“Supporting these mentors pedagogically, financially, logistically, and emotionally is not an act of charity. It is a commitment to transforming health professional education into a more humane, sensitive, and socially responsible practice,” said Dr. Lisboa.

We look forward to following their transformative work over the next 10 years!