Empowerment of black women from natural cosmetics

Abstract

The collective SAUIPE - Integral Health in Permaculture, of the Federal University of Viçosa
promotes agroecological workshops and mutirões. The collective understands the need to
exchange knowledge and social technologies with the local population that allow autonomy
and emancipation. In this work we report on the ecological cleaning and hygiene products
workshop, which involved women - residents of the neighborhoods Romão dos Reis and Rua
Nova, in Viçosa, MG - as mothers, workers and young people, understanding them not only
as socially exploited citizens and marginalized by the hegemonic system, but also as holders
of ancestral knowledge, practices and resistance. After the workshop, there was a demand
to return to the communities to carry out other workshops, generating new learning that will
contribute to the empowerment of women and the possibility of future income generation, in
addition to strengthening their autonomy and changes in their relationship with the body itself.