Paper short abstract:

This paper describes the training programs for indigenous health agents. Leaders, women and shamans, have entered the primary health care arena as protagonists. The “problem-posing” methodology and collective construction have encouraged a new role for the AIS to provide differentiated attention.

Paper long abstract:

This paper describes and analyzes the history and process of training programs for indigenous health agents (AIS), developed by Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo in the Xingu Indigenous Park, Mato Grosso, Brazil. During the past 30 years, the education of the AIS has undergone transformations in the effort to create new perspectives for intercultural dialogue that is essential for the provision of "differentiated attention", that is, health services that articulate with indigenous knowledge and practices. Evaluations of the training process have revealed limitations and differing expectations of the activities of these professionals. In addition, new Indigenous actors, including leaders, women and shamans, have entered the primary health care arena as protagonists. The adoption of the "problem-posing" methodology, based on critical pedagogy, which considers the student as the subject of the learning process, and the process of collective construction that incorporates traditional knowledge about health, diagnosis, treatment and cure, have encouraged a new role for the AIS, one that is no longer a mere agent of biomedicine, but one that is an interlocutor in the construction health services that seek to provide differentiated attention that is demanded by the National Health Policy for Indian Peoples.