Health promotion in urban vulnerable territories in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: A community-based approach

The Territorial Laboratory of Manguinhos is a community-based research dedicated to promote local social capital and knowledge production together with inhabitants, mostly students of secondary schools, in facing their socio-environmental context. Manguinhos is a conglomerate of poor communities living in 13 slums with many environmental health problems such as flooding, industrial pollution, violence, lack of public services and basic infra-structure. The project has as central presupposition a shared construction of cognitive contents for elaboration and diffusion of information to stimulate local and emancipatory mobilization. The project has as major theoretical influences the dialogical-action pedagogy of Paulo Freire, a critical view of Health Promotion and empowerment, and an ecosocial approach in understanding environment and health issues. Researchers from different areas – Public Health, Environmental and Social Sciences – are working together with students and communitarian leaderships in a research-action community. The students are selected from local public schools and participate in an educational grant program of scientific initiation. The methodology is based on building up “communication cycles” – production, circulation and appropriation of knowledge and information- about social and environmental vulnerabilities of Manguinhos. The research-action community is constituted by researchers, students and leaderships who develop an integrated knowledge production. Some outcomes are the website conhecendomanguinhos.fiocruz.br, movie documentaries about the history of communities and about local public policies, specially a current urbanization program called PAC.