The Social Technology denominated “Shared Construction of Solutions in Health” (Construção Compartilhada de Soluções em Saúde) builds the capacity of community leaders, women, youth and professionals to analyze problems that affect communities, schools and health programs, and to create solutions using available resources. The very people who live the problems become active stakeholders, acting to change the social determinants of health. They engage in action and create sustainable changes in their communities, or improve the quality of health and education services. More than 1,400 projects have been created and implemented.
The main focuses of the program are: Health Promotion; prevention of HIV/Aids, Local Development; Youth Leadership and improvement of public policies on health and education.
Cedaps’ team uses participatory techniques to enable participants to prioritize and analyze problems and resources, and then to elaborate, implement, and evaluate action projects. A support system helps the projects to achive its goals or become sustainable.
Community-based interventions contributed to minimize many different kinds of problems, tackling issues such as domestic, street, and school violence, lack of cultural and sport activities, prevention of HIV/Aids and other infectious diseases, lack of hygiene and good nutrition, adolescent pregnancy, income generation, environmental problems, low self-esteem in youth, learning difficulties, smoking, hypertension and diabetes, community organization, activities for the elderly, and problems in schools, day care centers and health units.
When applied to territorial interventions, the methodology involves the population since the first steps, with capacity building and mobilization activities. A Community Participatory Diagnostics is the next step, helping the community to generate knowledge about their problems, resources and abilities, becoming a stakeholder in the development process, This results in individual and collective empowerment, and the mobilization of communities and organizations for sustainable change.