Bahiana holds the 11th Forum of the Youth Care Center – CAJU

“Extension of care – solidarity networks, community & university.” With this theme, the Bahiana held the 9th Forum of the Youth Care Center (CAJU) last Saturday, November XNUMX, at the Cabula Campus. The initiative was attended by students from the institution and from public and private schools, community leaders and teachers. The meeting also celebrated ten years of partnership with the Residents Association of Conjunto Santa Luzia, in the Uruguai neighborhood, Salvador.

The diverse program included musical performances, exchanges of experiences and discussion groups on the fight for the right to health, the solidarity economy and psychosocial support. “One of the important points of this partnership with the residents of the Santa Luzia complex is the construction of a bond between the university and the community, and this implies trust, reciprocity and trying to do things together. CAJU uses an extension concept in the community to which we go to work with people, working with them to find solutions to local problems, without offering a magic formula or assuming a position of supremacy. But, of course, by bringing our knowledge”, declared the coordinator of CAJU and responsible for the event, Psychology professor Fábio Giorgio. He also highlights continuity as an important point of CAJU’s extension work. “Although we have carried out specific actions, what keeps us as an institution present in the territory is continuity, a ten-year relationship that is established by trust and mutual respect. We have already developed actions related to life projects, we have already used literature and music as a way of thinking about reality and we are currently working on a project for popular health agents, in which we make home visits”, says Giorgio.

Camila Abuse, a 9th semester Psychology student, says she has been part of CAJU since the beginning of her undergraduate studies. “I saw it as a way to extend myself beyond the university walls and understand the ways in which we can produce health and get in touch with communities, helping people. When we go out into the communities, we see life happening. Currently, this project of the popular health agents has been a great way to finish my internships at the end of my undergraduate studies. I think that extension is an essential part of our education, especially when we have the opportunity to do this, especially in a private institution”, says the student. For Maria de Lourdes, a member of the Residents Association of Conjunto Santa Luzia, the work of the Bahiana has contributed positively to the community. “The Bahiana has been doing the work of rescuing the medicine that the people were losing, and that we, the residents of the neighborhood, were unaware of. For example, the role of the prayer woman, the healer, the community gardens. So we are playing a very important role in rescuing our own ancestry, not letting it disappear, but strengthening it more and more”, concludes Lourdes.