The initiative “Promovendo a Igualdade Racial e Superando a Intolerância Religiosa nas Escolas Públicas Brasileiras – Dez anos da Lei n° 10.639/2003” (Promoting Racial Equality and Overcoming Religious Intolerance in Brazilian Public Schools – Ten Years of Law 10,639 / 2003), funded by the Ford Foundation, involved actions carried out in an internal partnership between the Ação na Justiça (Justice Action) and Diversidade, Raça e Participação (Diversity, Race and Participation). This initiative sought to implement the recommendations proposed by DHESCA (Human, Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights)Platform’s National Rapporteur for Education, in its mission regarding education and racism in Brazil, carried out from 2010 to 2012.
The main goals of the project were to contribute to the performance of the Justice System in favor of the implementation of the amendment of the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (LDB)(Law of Directives and Bases of National Education) by Law 10,639 / 2003; and overcoming religious intolerance and advocacy of secularity in educational policies and in the school environment.
Ação Educativa, as part of this Initiative, presents this work, whose goal is to reflect on the challenges of the implementation of law 10.639 / 2003 and the lessons learned from consolidated experiences of legal action in the defense and monitoring of the implementation of education for ethnic relations such as those developed by recognized organizations of the black movement, in particular Centro de Estudos das Relações de Trabalho e Desigualdades (Center for Studies on Labor Relations and Inequalities – CEERT) and Instituto de Advocacia Racial e Ambiental (Institute of Racial and Environmental Advocay – IARA).
With these actions, we hope to contribute to the effectiveness of the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional as amended by Law 10,639 / 2003, adding to the historical performance of the Brazilian black movement and in the perspective that racism is a challenge assumed and faced by all Brazilian society as an obstacle to effective social justice and democracy in our country.