Health promoting school: community role through young agents

Objectives: This work, an action research, aimed at planning, implementing and evaluating the health promoting school strategy, involving teenagers from a public school of Belo Horizonte. In the year 2003, some 20 students (young agents) took part. Methods: During weekly sessions topics like diet and hygiene were discussed. Recreational activities were used to diagnose students' knowledge about the relationship between diet and health, to implement the plantation of medicinal herbs in the school, to create billboards for lectures given by volunteers to the school and the community, and to survey problems in the physical environment of the school, among others. Results: Despite initial barriers for the acceptance of the project in the routine of the school, positive results were obtained such as: participation of the students from the planning of activities to their implementation, articulation between older (young agents) and younger students, an particularly the comprehension and absorption by the students, of the health promoting school strategy. Teachers' interest for the strategy was gradually awakened. They asked for theoretical knowledge of the study proposal and a health promoting school seminar took place in the Dental School of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Conclusion: Despite the impossibility of an evaluation of effectiveness, the project showed the possibility of the implementation of activities within the chosen strategy, with a significant participation of the whole school community.