AfroPython: Using Django to change black people life in Brazil with Felipe de Morais

Speaker 1: Hello You look very sad. I'll try again. Hello. Hello. Thank you. That's much better. So I came all the way from Brazil to speak at this conference. Woohoo. And I will talk a bit about what we are doing with AfroPython and how it started and how you can you can support us and on what we are doing. So I start with myself and tell you who I am. I'm Felipe, Felipe de Moraes Some people found me on the internet as Philly Python because of the connection and the love that I have for the Python language. I was born in Rio

Speaker 1: and tomorrow at my line tuning talk I have a message for you about Rio. I a black man, as you can see, and that's a important part of what I'm telling here you here today. My mom is a dressmaker, my dad is an electrician, and I also speak four languages. Um I speak Brazilian Portuguese. A lot of people believe that we speak Spanish in Brazil. That's not true. We speak Portuguese. And I speak English as you can see and also speak Spanish. And that's the flag of Chile because I learned it Spanish when I was working with um people from chile and also do um Brazilian Sign Language and I'll explain you what this means.

Speaker 1: May that's um similar in the US Sign Language as well. This is the I Can you do it with me? I L U. So I love you. So whenever you see a deaf person signing this to you, they are saying that they love you. So that's something that we learned today. I am also a pet parent and I got to know that in PyCon you one whenever you talk about your pet you need to show pictures. So I'm gonna keep you the rule, but not now. I'm also a software engineer, so a developer, and I was also graduated in computer science.

Speaker 1: And I'm a Python by heart. And here's Passaka. This is my dog. And I'll give you here a message. I am the second adoption of Passaka. Passalca actually is a candy in Brazil, by the way, my favorite candy. And once you go to Brazil, you need to try. But she was mistreated in a first adoption, and she was Give b had had to be rescued from the first adoption because she was being mistreated and I am the second adoption of her. So if you go on my Instagram you see a lot of a lot of videos of me training her because because of the first adoption she gets very scared of everything. So in order to get her in um a better life. I have to train her to be more outgoing and be able to reach out and play and do

Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. So that's Pasaka and that's my message about how you should treat your pet or even um wherever animal that you see. Okay, let's go. So how everything started. A lot of people talk about Jungle Girls here and how they started with Jungle Girls even Dawn. She was talking here about the jungle that happened yesterday. That was one of the coaches. And Abigail saw her keynote told about How was important the first jungle girls that she participated? And for me to maintain that's important because everything started in Jungle Girls. So I'm originally from Rio, as I said here, but I moved it to the south of Brazil to a city called Porto Alegre.

Speaker 1: That's close to Uruguay, Argentina. Okay. I just realized that I speak with Spanish accent when I said Argentina. But let's go. In 2015, I went to I organized my first Jungle Girls and in the south of Brazil And since then we started to grow and we realized that for the first iteration that we did, we were able to bring a lot of women, but most of them were people that have notebooks to bring to the workshop and most of them were white ladies. That's not an issue, but we wanted to be more diverse. And so we started to reach out to public schools in in In Porto Lagri to reach out to a more diverse

Speaker 1: audience. And one point that was key for us to understand how important it was to be diverse, even if I in the women group, was when we had a mother in as part of the organization team that she explained to us how important it was to have a um place to to have their keys during the event. So since the beginning and since this event actually actually we had space for parents to have um Small kids, sorry, small kids, young kids, that they can bring to the conference and we have a safe place to stay where their parents are enjoying the conference as we have here. That's very important And but I was feeling that me as a black man

Speaker 1: also seeing a lot of black people are not represented in the um software industry or in the in the art that I was working for. And I felt that there was a lot of initiatives for women in IT, but I really missed an initiative like Jay Miller is doing like black Python devs, I felt that was necessary. So that's how Python started. After Python started, sorry. And here's a video. It's a two-minute video. It's very short, but it explains very well what is the situation of black people in Brazil and how it gets it in this way. So let's see if the audio is working and let's give it a try. The video is in Portuguese, but we have

Speaker 1: I have subtitles. Okay, the audio is not working. Let's see if we can fix this.

Speaker 2: Negro. Mas o que dá pra afirmar é que a gente não sabe se você é branco ou negro. Mas o que dá pra afirmar é que esse fato define a sua vida. A população negra compõe mais da metade dos brasileiros. Na teoria. Significa que os índices deveriam ser divididos proporcionalmente entre negros e brancos. Mas na prática, isso está longe de acontecer. A educação é um bom exemplo disso. A chance de um negro ser analfabeto é cinco vezes maior que um branco. No outro extremo, somente uma a cada quatro pessoas com ensino superior é negra. O impacto disso só aumenta quando pensamos fora da sala de aula. 70% das pessoas que vivem em situação de extrema pobreza no nosso país são negras.

Speaker 2: Pessoas com pele mais clara. Representam 80% dos brasileiros mais ricos. Isso tudo se reflete diretamente na qualidade de vida. Enquanto 70% dos brancos possuem uma máquina de lavar em casa. Mais da metade dos domicílios chefiados por uma pessoa negra não tem um eletrodoméstico. O mesmo vale para a internet. Mais de 50% dos negros não possuem nenhum tipo de acesso à rede. Essa proporção também aparece em quesitos ainda mais essenciais para a vida humana. Quase 40% dos negros que vivem em áreas urbanas não possuem esgoto encanado. E 70% das pessoas que dependem do SUS. São negras. A cor da sua pele também determina o seu tempo de vida. Em 10 anos, os homicídios de mulheres brancas caíram, enquanto que de negras

Speaker 2: aumentaram. E a morte não é só feminina. Somando os gêneros, a cada 12 minutos uma pessoa negra é assassinada no Brasil. Também são os negros que mais morrem em operações policiais e ocupam a maior parte da população carcerária brasileira. Pode ser difícil para a comunidade negra mudar isso por dentro, porque ela quase não é representada nem no judiciário, nem no legislativo, muito menos no executivo. Essa defasagem não é de hoje. Historically, o Brasil é ultrapassado in representatividade racial. Ele foi o último país ocidental a abolir a escravidão. O Brasil é um país racista, e quem está dizendo isso não é a gente, é a ONU. E esse problema envolve tanto as esferas políticas que já citamos como o nosso dia a dia.

Speaker 2: Precisamos debater o assunto. E denunciar os preconceitos. Afinal, nossa vida não pode ser definida por apenas um conjunto de linhas.

Speaker 1: Okay, so it's hard. And one way to overcome this is Using the IT industry to get a good job and have a good salary so we can support your family and the your loved ones. And here they were when the idea came out. Um in July of 2017, we started with our first um It was completely inspired on Jungle Girls and what PyLady was doing, especially in Brazil. And we started our very first event. And we were a group of five people that wanted to have a workshop but focused on black people this time. And we um started with a Facebook

Speaker 1: page And we received a lot of hate because people were not able to understand why was it important, as I have seen a lot of hate on by ladies and jungle girls initiatives as well. That's just people that don't understand why it's important. We don't have enough context to like this video can show and why is this kind of initiatives important for us. So and we started to see some achievements and things that we were able to get positive feedback from, and we start to um hold on on this and keep the good work. So this was our first event, and one thing that was important for me, especially on this event, are two points. One We were so far away from each other that we were not able to see each other.

Speaker 1: So we felt lonely in this journey. And to be able to feel strong, whatever we are doing. We need to feel to see each other in place that we would like to be. And the second point is I Saw that there was a lot of stories. There was a special person that was telling their story, and I completely heard my story on their story, and I felt that The problem that I was struggling a lot to solve, he already solved it and he was a bit um older than me. And if we were able to knew each other before I would be able to pass through this time much easier when I had a lot of trouble to pass. And these are two learnings that we learn. And one thing that I was talking with

Speaker 1: Jay Miller yesterday, or maybe today, about how the technology that we use to overcome a lot of problems today are um ancestral technologies, things that um black people have used in the past that we can use now. The idea of get together to are able to solve problems. and are very key for human beings. If you like, there is a product in Brazil called Tamar. It's a product that you have in the beaches. Where you see where the the mum turtle put their eggs and when the eggs are ready the turtle this baby turtle comes out and they have they know their way. They just go to the m to the sea and do what whatever they have to do. If you try to do that with a human baby, they would not survive.

Speaker 1: Because as human beings, we need to be connected to each other to be able to survive. And that's what we do. Since the beginning, we get together like we are doing this conference to be able to tackle bigger problems. And raise hands is a super big problem, and that's why I need to get together to be able to face this issue And this was our second event. And if you know about Pan-Africanism, you're gonna recognize that the colors of the t-shirts are from the Pan-African flag and this was in 2019 in 2018 the year before during the PyCon Brazil that we call Python Brazil And we had a PyLatisconf.

Speaker 1: And inspired on that event from PyLatis, we did our first Afro-Python conf. That was this one that was key. We were able to bring people from different um cities of Brazil. We were able to fly people and get together. And this is an event on Salvador that's a city very important for Brazil and especially a state very important for Brazil. A lot of people don't know how many black people we have in Brazil, but just to give you an example, Salvador is the city with more black people in the world outside of Africa. So that's a city that's key for us

Speaker 1: because that there is a place that we can tackle a lot of the problems at once. And that's where we started to do some of our events as Alpha Python there. And we understood that a problem that Abigail shared on her keynote is that at some moment we start to face issues because we laugh we lack resources. like money, sometimes time of people that could do the work. And we understood that we needed to make money and out of AfroPython, especially the companies that would like to be more diverse We have these people, we build this community and we could help these companies reach out to this person or to these people and make the connections. And from this we help

Speaker 1: the company be my more diverse. We help the person to get a job and we help ourselves when we make money to keep the good work. And this is what we have done in 2021. And this year we came out with a team to be able to focus on this problem and we formalized it after Python as a company. And now we are formally a company and we are starting to do courses and events and things that we are That we believe that can gather people together, help to help each other, and also help the companies that want to hire more black people or have a lack of engineers and all that stuff And this is our last event.

Speaker 1: This event um happened this year. Um may not not everyone knows, but it happens in July. And we choose July, especially because in the 25th of July is the day of the Afro-Latin American and Caribbean woman. And we choose this day to be able to also have more black women speaking at the events as well because and that's another issue that similar with the moon in the women's group, we have like the black women inside the black people group that are in need of different um points that the whole group. So we try to be more um intentional on what we are doing. And we begin this having a lot of black women in the organization of the event.

Speaker 1: And my partner, I'll have to go back and talk about her. And that's Amanda Vieira. She's my partner at AfroPython as a company. Okay, and we have a video um that I will not show you because I may like um I'm probably gonna Past the time, but I'll share here the KR code that you can take a look later. But you were will be able to see how important it is to have um events like this, especially in Brazil. because these are key for us to get together and are able to um tackle these kind of problems

Speaker 1: Okay. So what do we want as the future? Um AfroPython wants to be an education company where we educate people, people get the job, and the companies become either more diverse and we make this circle It's like the Lion King, the full circle. And it never stops because we need to help as much people as we can and we keep this circle going in a positive way. And we decided to make a um a course called Ancestral Odyssey that is a two-weeks course focused on Teach black people how to code, but not

Speaker 1: not just in a one-day workshop as we were doing before. This will be a two weeks long course. Where we're gonna teach people the fundamentals of logic programming so we can start. And that's part of a bigger plan. We want to be a boot camp where we're gonna Teach people in four months whatever they need to know to get at their first job. We 'll not be like senior engineers out of the boot camp, but we will be able to get their first job And with that, we'll be able to give the support and make the the circle keep going. And in order to do that, we made a special website for this conference

Speaker 1: where we're gonna ask for you for help on If you can support us and donate, we have a specific number that's gonna be gonna make one person able to participate in the course. And we want to support people by and make the change uh on their lives as I am. both me and Amanda and I'm just came from a rich family, but I was able to get a lot of things from the life. But that was key for me to be in the IT industry. Because since my first job I have a better salary than my father that is like 30 25 years in the electrician field and

Speaker 1: that's key for me. To be able to not help just him, but also are able to help my family as well. And for example, my my young brother, Mahlo. And he wanted to be in the military. And in order to be in the military in Brazil, for some some position that's a bit higher, like a sergeant. You need to go through a course, there is a physical test, and usually you need to go through um some preparation before. And if you don't have the money to afford for the preparation, you never get past at the test and you're never gonna get there. But since I'm able to I was able to get enough money to support just not just myself but also my family, I was able to pay him for the preparation and he got into the

Speaker 1: into the military and a few years ago during the pandemic he graduated and now he's able to support other people as well. So this becomes a positive circle where he now is able to help more people and now able to help more people and everyone gonna get um a benefit from this. And the number is $100. And these may are not a lot of money for you, but that's gonna change a pip a person's life. And I'm gonna show you the website and where we can But you can go to the through the QR code and at the end of the website there is a account. It's a US account. We made this website especially for PyCon.

Speaker 1: Sorry, for Django Con. I keep mixing the booth conferences. But um the goal here is each one hundred dollars that we get, we are gonna put one black person in Brazil in the course. And later one to to share what was the results of what we have done Okay, let's go to through the website. So this is a very simple website.

Speaker 1: This is um part of the AfroPython and website and we made this especially for this conference and We already tested this um idea that we wanted to do. If you go to AfroPython Instagram, for example, you're gonna see that in the last few weeks we were very active in events and doing a lot of workshops because we want to reach out to more people, especially in different cities of Brazil. And this idea um this workshop actually is in part inspired in um some um This is inspired in the Yoruba tribe and and there is a lot of knowledge that are like um binary math that was already in that um tribe and we brought this up to teach

Speaker 1: people how to code. And this is the website here. We explain a bit more how how you are planning to do this. November in Brazil is the month of the I would call Black History Month for people in the US, but our Black History Month is in November and we are going to release this to the public so whoever wanna be part of the course gonna have a chance to to subscribe not to subscribe but to apply and get the course So I would like to say thank you for the opportunity to be here and a very important

Speaker 1: thing to be here. And I have a lot of stickers of AfroPython here. If wanna get one, I have, just reach out to me. And I have some um business cards if you want to talk about business you want to support AfroPython somehow and I have some cards and we can schedule a meeting with us and get to talk And I just would like to say thank you for the opportunity and for everyone that supported me to get here. And that's it. This is AfroPython. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Where do you see this being in maybe Not one year, but five years or ten years or I don't know. Are we allowed to think 15 or 20 years ahead? I don't know, but you know, in in really in the long term.

Speaker 1: Um as I said, I believe that Afrophy is an education company and I believe that we can change the scenario that we have using education as a lot of people told here that education changed their life. Abkayu, Don, Jay Miller, Zelda, a lot of people uh were able to race in social s aspects through the education and in a in Five years I would like to be a school. In 20 years, I would like to be a university of black people. And are able to not just technology, but are able to open for other fields as well.

Speaker 4: My question is, what is the best thing about run running AfroPython? What would you define as the best thing that you has happened or that you value that you'd want to see more of as you r still run the program.

Speaker 1: You're going to make me cry.

Speaker 4: That's the point.

Speaker 1: Okay. Um See the people that we changed the lives. Um there is a story of a teacher that is a historic history teacher. in Brazil and she transitioned career career and she started with us at AfroPython and now she's working as a data scientist um for a company in Brazil and see person that we changed their life is very impactful and you're able to see like I helped that person but I'd like to be to be able to do this in scale And that's why we were coming up in with this idea of have course and have a boot camp where we can make this machine work and change a lot of people's lives.

Speaker 5: I I won't be as mean. What is something that you think that AfroPython is doing well that conferences in the United States could implement?

Speaker 1: We are very inclusive. In the video that I asked you asked you to read the QR code, you're gonna see that on the top um on the button on the right, there is a person doing Brazilian Sign Language. And that's important for us to make inclusive for um people that are deaf. That I showed the design. And if Whatever person that's death want to be for a DjangoCon or for a PyCon conference, they would not be able to because there is no sign language translation. as diverse you get, for example, um food restrictions and maybe some some people will not be able to grant the grants are very important.

Speaker 1: They may be able to be here. There is a lot of aspects. As we get more diverse in the organization of the event, we get to know to see through these perspectives. And we're able to bring this to the events and are able to reach out to more people and be more inclusive.

Speaker 3: You you came to PyCon Africa. What connections do you see between what you're doing in Brazil and what you encountered there?

Speaker 1: That's um just to give context, and I went to PyCon Africa in 2019. And that's why I gonna I I met Danielle, Abgayu, a lot of Ron, a lot of people that are here. Um I see a lot of connections, especially for example, this this morning I was talking to to Ron and I realized that one of the ideas that I we had in this after Python conf this year. was to have a cut route presentation that was regional. And I just realized that talking to Ron that I got this idea from PyCon Africa. At the end of the conference, we had a present a cultural presentation that was about the city that we were that was Accra in Ghana. And in Salvador this year, we have done this and I'm also helping bring that to

Speaker 1: other events that I'm part of the organization as well. Like We have a regional event called Python North East in Brazil and we brought this idea to the event as well. And we have a cultural presentation that also helps. make this connection. And like I learned this there and I brought it to Brazil. And I I in that um conference I was able to share what we are were doing at that moment with AfroPython. A lot of things were different from what I showed here, but we were able to exchange knowledge in this way as I was telling we get together, we share what we know we know, and we're able to face um bigger challenges

Speaker 6: So our time is up, but you can still find him all in the hallways and talk all about it. So Thank you.