Youth and participation: the junior health promoters experience in the cidadania e saúde no espaço escolar program

Abstract

This essay aims to analyze the junior health promoters’
experience in the Cidadania e Saúde no Espaço Escolar Program, developed by the primary health care from the Nucleus of Teenagers Health Studies (NESA). It examines what the junior health promoters understand of the health promoters’ activity as well as their comprehension of health and the limits and possibilities of the health promotion action. It also investigates what the NESA professionals understand of the actions developed by the junior health promoters, taking into consideration their perspective. The youth is a historical category and must be understood as a contradictory process with several meanings. Therefore, the youth build their identity from their social relations in its numerous social, cultural and political contexts. The health promoters’ work has as its main concern the citizenship and participation construction. Their health education actions strengthen the individual autonomy, as they are seen as people with legal rights, responsible for the building of their own history.