Community Education for active aging: Experience in construction from self-development

Abstract

Population aging is a global concern. Active aging is a must. The projects and actions that promote their development and sustainability must increase. Community education can contribute in a sustained way to active aging, from the conception of sociocultural projects. Villa Clara, a province in the center of Cuba, has very old Popular Councils. The Consejo Popular Hospital-Chamberí is one of them and constitutes the research context. This study aimed to identify the potential for designing a sociocultural community education project for the active aging of the elderly in this Consejo Popular Hospital-Chamberí. This qualitative research used the Methodology for Community Self-Development (MCS), which proposes a fundamental epistemological and practical paradigm to develop educational and transformative processes in communities. It is structured in five stages, of which two have been applied so far. We identified the recognition of the problem, the willingness to participate actively, the existence of available public spaces and the non-existence of a project for this purpose as some of the strengths and weaknesses that will enable the design of a future sociocultural community education project for active aging from self-development.