For years Janilson traveled eight kilometers a day to study. Today that path has brought him to the faculty of medicine.
Janilson Silva dos Anjos belongs to the indigenous people Sateré-Mawé and comes from the Brazilian Amazon.
The school, for him, was not simply the place to arrive every morning.
It was something you had to conquer.
There were periods when he didn't even have a notebook.
To be able to buy the school material he sold bananas, flour and fish in his own community.
Teachers soon realized his determination.
When money was missing, some of them began to help him by providing them with notebooks and other material, to prevent that economic difficulty from becoming the reason for abandoning studies.
Then family experiences came, which also changed the meaning of his future.
Janilson lost a brother because of malaria.
He saw an uncle facing a tumor and a sister receiving the diagnosis of a rare disease.
The medicine stopped being only a possible profession.
He became a personal choice.
He wanted to acquire the tools to take care of others and bring health skills even in the realities in which receiving assistance can be much more difficult.
He continued to study.
He did so without attending expensive preparation courses, using the resources he had at his disposal.
Then, at 29, the result came that for a long time it seemed very far away.
In the Special Selection Process 2025 of the Federal University of Pará, at the Altamira campus, Janilson won the first place among indigenous candidates for the Medicine course.
A huge finish.
But not the end of the difficulties.
Entering the university means having to live away from one's own community, finding accommodation, supporting transport costs and at the same time continuing to worry about older parents.
His story recalls something we often forget when we celebrate someone who "made it".
Overcoming an exam does not automatically eliminate all obstacles that existed before.
Talent can open a door.
Then you must have the necessary economic conditions to cross it and stay on the other side long enough to complete the route.
Janilson has already walked a lot, literally and not only.
Eight kilometers to reach a class.
Products sold to buy a notebook.
Study hours without the resources other students can give for granted.
Now in front of him there are years of medical studies.
And perhaps the most significant detail is this: the child who travelled kilometers to enter a classroom wants to become the doctor able, one day, to shorten the distance between care and communities like the one from which it comes.