Quilombo Aéreo: initiative seeks racial equity in aviation

A shared concern that turned into a struggle. This is how the project of Kênia and Laiara Amorim, both flight attendants and coordinators of Quilombo Aéreo, began. It all started when the two observed racism and the low presence of black people in aviation. The initiative began in 2019, but over time, other black flight attendants joined the duo, in order to add to the growth of the group, such as the arrival of Fernanda and Jirvalos, in 2021. The group started as a collective of aeronauts, who got together through a messaging application group to seek racial and gender equity. Other agendas began to be raised, bringing visibility to the struggles of black people in Brazilian civil aviation and making the agendas of black crew members public.

Today Quilombo Aéreo is an institution that offers professional courses, develops affirmative actions for employability and professional relocation for black people, in addition to offering specialized consultancy on racial guidelines within aviation, with Afro-centered psychological and legal assistance.

Purpose of the Quilombo Aéreo

The main objective of the project is to combat racism and the low presence of black people in aviation by delivering training, capacity building and employability.

The Voo Negro (‘Black Flight’) profile, conceived by Kenia Aquino, appeared on social networks at the same time as the black crew members messaging app group. Together with the profile Voe Como Uma Garota Negra (‘Fly like a black girl’), conceived by Laiara Amorim, it promotes visibility and praises the presence of black people in Brazilian aviation, since both perceived little evidence of photos with the theme of blackness on pages focused on the theme.

The first became the Voo Negro project, carried out through the Edital Programa de Aceleração e Desenvolvimento de Lideranças Femininas Marielle Franco (‘Marielle Franco Acceleration and Development Program for Female Leaders’). The project offered scholarships for the flight attendant course and all the necessary support for professionalization, with the idea of strengthening the presence of black people in the area. Eleven students were contemplated in person, in Porto Alegre. Subsequently, Quilombo Aéreo also applied for the Enfrente Public Notice with the project ‘Pretos que Voam 2’, with approval. But for the realization of the project, the campaign that is in the air needs to reach a goal, because it is an “all or nothing” campaign – which can only receive the amounts collected if they reach the stipulated total. The forces of the project team are concentrated on the bureaucratic activities of setting up the school and the campaign.

If the campaign is successful, the project will host scholars at the national level through the online school Quilombo Aéreo, already under development. The selection criteria will follow the same guidelines as the university quota policy.

Project impact

Claudio Renan, son of civil servants, native of Rio Grande do Sul and active in supporting the demands of organization, agenda and technology, talks about the challenges, victories and impacts already caused by Quilombo Aéreo.

“The challenges of addressing structural racism within aviation are many, and this is exacerbated when people have to give up privileges. We can say that aviation is still far from ideal in terms of equity and there is a lot of work ahead. Regarding victories, today, we have five black women hired and flying the skies of Brazil and the world. But we know we can do much more. We are committed to it. After all, training classes of flight attendants is only part of it, because, to make this work complete, one of the main objectives of this project is employability. The project has already impacted 11 scholarship holders, in addition to nine favela’s communities in the city of Porto Alegre and region”, he concludes.

Claudio Renan also says that these students are a concrete example that changing realities is possible, and that some of these scholarship holders have young children, which ends up being a model of socio-financial ascension for growing individuals. It is necessary to introduce them to different perspectives of life.

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