HappyAge

report of an experience of an extension project oriented to the elderly public through local radio

Abstract

Due to changes in the demographic, and the consequent aging of the population, it is essential to disseminate ways of bringing health knowledge to the elderly population, primarily to provide active and healthy aging. Thus, this paper reports the experience of actions designed at sharing information about aging with residents of the city of Uruguaiana-RS, Brazil. For this, from the creation of the “HappyAge” project, a partnership was established between an Academic League and a local radio station, as this media reaches different segments of the population and has a prominent role in the democratization of information. The actions were carried out weekly, in a dialogue format, between two students and the radio broadcaster. The chosen topics included themes such as hypertension and diabetes, as well as less explored subjects such as mental health and sexuality in the elderly. The topic definitions occurred together with the teachers involved in the project. At the end of the project, through interaction with the listeners, via digital communication platform, it became evident that there are beneficial effects to the general community when health knowledge is shared. Furthermore, the academics involved were also positively affected, since they deepened their communicative abilities and knowledge construction.