Note from BW of Brazil: You gotta love stories like this on! Brazil needs for more black people in positions of influence to make statements such as the one featured in today’s story. Of course one could look and say, it wasn’t that big a deal because her action didn’t affect a lot of people. But her actions meant the world to one little girl and if we can do little changes to help a 1, 100 or 1 million people, it still matters! And as we have seen, it is a HUGE struggle for Afro-Brazilians to find pride and strength to wear their hair in its natural state. Just look at the horrific assault on a black hairstylist in yesterday’s post! Congratulations to Ana Bárbara Ferreira! Her actions gave a boost of self-esteem to a beautiful little black girl!
Beautiful just like you: teacher wears the same hairstyle as a student who had been bullied because of her hair
Courtesy of Hypeness
Sometimes – or many times – things that happen around us make us so sad and to such a degree that we even lose heart. But then there are people like Ana Bárbara Ferreira and they give us the certainty that wonderful creatures like her are the hope of a better and more just world.
The teacher was faced with a situation, unfortunately, quite common. One of her students told her that a colleague had offended her by saying that her afro hair was ugly. The little girl was devastated by those words.
Upon hearing her account, Ana Bárbara did exactly what she should have done at that moment: she talked to the little girl and said how beautiful she was and not to worry about what the boy had said. Of course, as a childcare professional, no matter how many positive things she said, she knew the little girl would still think about her colleague’s attitude.
So the next day she woke up thinking what happened and had a great idea to solve the situation: wearing the exact same hairstyle that her student usually wears. “When she saw me, she ran to hug me and say that I looked beautiful and I said, ‘Today I look beautiful just like you!'”
Ana Bárbara shared this story on her Facebook and her publication had more than 28 thousand shares and 135 thousand reactions.
Ana Bárbara: “Yesterday my student came to me and said that there was a boy saying that her hair was ugly….She was very sad…At that moment the only thing I managed to say to her was that she was marvelous and that she shouldn’t worry about what he said. Today I woke up and remembered what had happened and decided to wear the same hairstyle that she usually wears. When she saw me, she came running to hug me and say that I was beautiful and I said, ‘today I am beautiful just like you!'”
Source: Hypeness
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