HEALTH TOYS: POPULAR EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ANIMATION WITH STREET POPULATION IN BELÉM-PA

Abstract

Article organized as a reflection of the theoretical-practical experiences from the Extension Project of the Federal University of Pará "Health Toys: playfulness, leisure and popular education for the purpose of production of citizenship and mental health". It aims to investigate the practices called Health Toys, analyzing possibilities and limits in the relations between leisure fields, education and care, from contributions of popular education and cultural animation. It is about an action research, effort of theoretical and practical production, systematically and continuously, carried out by monitoring of Health Toys actions developed in public spaces in the city of Belém, as well as the formative processes of caretakers's group (teachers, students and artists) involved in the execution of the project, for the purpose of systematizing and improving the practice. The main results were: the categories, cultural animation and popular education, contribute to invention of alternative strategies about health and citizenship production with street population from experiences of collective construction of knowledge; the ludic character, the freedom to choose the cultural content and the flexibility of the delivery time, that marks the leisure experiences, contribute to establishment of an ethic-esthetic of the encounter, the play make easier the establishment of bonds, enabling a liberating education; recognizes the limit of action of project about the amount of people benefited and sufficient financial resources for its development. The project proposes Health Toys as an important source of meetings able to operate strategies and ways of living critically, working affections to liberate the life in the city. This experience shows to the meeting of knowledge and practices between play and caring as a trigger for ethical-esthetic possibilities committed to releasing life in Belém, one of the most violent cities in the world.