Popular education

Introduced in Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s teaching approach, the expression popular education encompasses many of Freire’s idea regarding education. It stands for a people-oriented and people-guided education because it respects and interacts with people’s social-economical reality and it also aims at developing critical thinking and people’s consciousness of their leading role in their own history. Popular education is people-oriented in the sense that it responds to people’s needs and interests either inside or outside an education building. And it is also people-guided because population plays an active role in building its curriculum.

Pode-se afirmar que educação popular é aquela direcionada às camadas populares, voltada para suas necessidades e atendendo a seus interesses, a qual pode acontecer dentro ou fora dos muros das instituições educacionais. Entretanto, pode-se chamar também de educação popular aquela cujo currículo é pensando também pela população.

Popular education and health

Popular education has come together with health-related actions since its very beginning. It has played a decisive role in different moments of Brazilian public health in the last four decades, and it has been experiencing a new development in the last few years as a health-related social movement and a ground for knowledge and activities.

Popular education at CEHMOB-MG

CEHMOB-MG works with popular education in the sense of teaching people with sickle cell disease and their relatives about the disease, its manifestations, care actions and treatment. Several actions aim both at fostering self-esteem and self-pride among black people (for they are the most affected population) and at providing information as a means to further acceptance and good relationships among patients, relatives and society.

Academic projects

CEHMOB-MG multi-disciplinary staff carries out academic projects involving literacy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nutrition, speech therapy, dentistry and psychology to assist and educate patients and relatives. Besides sheltering patients that come to Belo Horizonte looking for medical assistance, CEHMOB provides patients and their companions with several educational, social and health-related activities.

Literacy

The literacy project aims at intertwining Portuguese linguistics (reading and writing) and social activities by encouraging children and companions to exchange any experiences through letters.

Physiotherapy

The physiotherapy project encompasses several theoretical and practical activities for children’s motor development and parents’ and children’s correct body posture.

Occupational therapy

The occupational therapy project spurs “oriented entertainment”, that is, interns interfere in activities when they notice anything wrong with a child.

Nutrition

The nutrition project promotes educative games and provides patients and their companions with information about hygiene, food conservation, nourishment, and so on.

Speech therapy

The speech therapy project aims at stimulating speech and hearing, and breast-feeding, and also at offering lectures and folders orienting relatives about nursing bottles and pacifiers.

Dentistry

The dentistry project orients patients and companions about teeth brushing, tooth decay and gum diseases. Such information is important because tooth decay is likely to impair mastication and may cause oral infections (abscesses) in people with sickle cell disease.

Psychology

The psychology project offers individual or collective assistance for patients and parents to cope with difficulties involving the disease, such as low self-esteem.

Primers

CEHMOB-MG also fosters popular education by producing and distributing easy-reading, picture- or comic strip-style primers about sickle cell disease. One of the first primers, “What is sickle cell disease”, was produced in partnership with Hemominas Foundation, Women and Children’s Health Institute and Minas Gerais Health Department.

This straightforward primer introduced all the aspects of the disease, ranging from its signs and symptoms to wide social and psychological issues.