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Favelas in RJ state are often located on hills, which served as refuge for enslaved people - after the abolition of slavery (1888) - and immigrants, who worked for downtown citizens. The Law of lands (1850) prevented unoccupied lands to be owned through labour and provided government subsidies for the arrival of foreign settlers to be hired in the country, further devaluing the work of black men and women. As a result, favelas today are mostly composed of a black population, surviving decades of persecutions and low incomes while defending, preserving and creating a unique culture rooted in African origins that reverberates into music and the arts. Children in favelas, due to social and economical inequality and racial discrimination, have less possibility of personal development and professional realization. They attend public schools where in 2021, according to SAEB, students do not reach a satisfactory level in Portuguese language (69%) and math (95%).

They hardly have access to after-school courses and do not tend to see themselves represented in the academic community. This produces a disadvantage in access to higher education and consequently in opportunities for decent employment. The project Closer to the Sky aims at co-producing scientific knowledge in collaboration between astronomers and artists/educators living in the favela of Cantagalo Pavão Pavdosinho (PPG, RJ, Brazil), for children, teenagers and young adults of the community. We will work in close collaboration with the social project Ninho das Aguias, where classes and night sky observations will be held.
Offering extracurricular courses and cultural experiences to students in the PPG, we wish to enrich their school curriculum and strengthen the chance they wish to stay in education after secondary school. A key element of the courses is providing positive role models of scientists from Afrodescendant backgrounds, reinforced by the presence of local artists and educators, thus endorsing their role within the academic community. The project also creates just work opportunities for local artists and educators, who will offer workshops rooted in favela culture, while at the same time creating novel, decolonial courseware based on contextualized science, i.e materials that use the context of marginalized societies as examples where we can understand, learn and make science. The material developed within the project will be shared as Open Educational Resources in several languages.

Barbosa Araujo, Claudio Alberto. 2023. "Closer to the Sky." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science, Honolulu, Hawaii, Nov 8-11.

This study examined the risk of acquiring Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) by healthcare workers in the setting of general hospitals and isolation units. By looking retrospectively at the Ebola Outbreak in Sierra Leone, the relative levels of risk to healthcare workers were computed and compared. The reasoning for these levels was also examined through interviews of surviving workers and the families/associates/colleagues of the deceased workers. The interviews reviewed common actions (and lack there of) for affected workers. This revealed certain themes that should be visited when reveising/creating hospital infection prevention and control policies.

In the case of this study, the vulnerable population examined was healthcare workers in Sierra Leone during the outbreak. These workers were found to be at a significant level of risk for transmission for a number of reasons. These include proximity to the virus (due to the occupation), lack of training in the area of infection control, and cultural factors (such as prevalence of self-medication and home management of illness). Nurses as a whole were most affected, with over half of the infected members. 

The data acquired in this study can be used not only for improvement in policies and training for healthcare workers, but also to examine the risk factors for the disease. One example is the age and gender disparities in those nfected. These could be explained by the typical age and gender of healthcare workers, but could also show a trend in risk when coupled with patient data. The data on the districts and their infection rates can be used to help pinpoint the origin of infection. 

The study was published in BMC Infectious Diseases, a peer-reviewed journal on the prevention, diagnoisis, and management of infectious disease. The journal seems to be genrally well respected.

This was a retrospective study. While not the most accurate and well supported way to conduct a study, due to the effects of recall bias, it was really the only way to gain the data that was presented in the report. There isn't really anything new about the style of research. 

At least one further study has been conducted using this data. A more focussed paper on the Kenema District in Sierra Leone was written, addressing the staggering number of cases with infected healthcare workers. The paper is titled "Facors Underlying Ebola Virus Infection Among healthcare Workers, Kenema, Sierra Leone, 2014-2015."  The paper reached similar conlusions as the original one, with a need for better practices in infection control and prevention. 

The study was funded by the WHO Country Office for Sierra leone.

Quoted from the front page of the website

"Our Mission ... to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level.

Our Goal ... to assure that comprehensive, culturally acceptable personal and public health services are available and accessible to American Indian and Alaska Native people."

The membership consists of American natives who would like to receive the benefits of this organization. To be eligible to be a member you must be "an Indian and/or Alaskan Native" evidenced by several factors including being a part of a tribe, living on reservation land, or living in the household of a native. The employees consist of federal healthcare professionals commissioned by the United States Public Health Service and Civil Service federal employees.