Generational workshops in Brazil: between the socialization of the individual and its stories

Abstract

This communication will focus on teaching / research / extension project, developed in the City of Londrina, in the state of Paraná, southern Brazil. In the context of this project, "Generational Workshops" are undertaken with the purpose of promoting the socialization of the narratives of the life experience of the elderly living in Londrina. The content enunciated by the elderly, enrich the historical formation of the local community and assist in the process of deconfining of this social group. The contemporary reality, especially in Latin American countries, has led a group of elderly people to isolation and, in many cases, the silencing of their narratives. In this sense, the creation of institutional devices capable of rescuing these subjects and their narratives, collaborates not only with the rescue of the human condition of these subjects, at the same time, cooperates with the (re) significance of their identities. The promotion of the project mobilized public institutions of the city: the State University of Londrina and the Municipal Secretariats of Education and the Elderly. The partners understood the need to create the institutional device "generational workshops" for the valorization of the history, memory, and narratives of those who built the history of the municipality with its symbolic and material repertoires. It organized from weekly meetings; the device had the participation of a group of 15 elderly people, who, weekly, contributed to the construction of a memorialistic collection. After a year of activity, we can affirm the value of spaces for memory sharing, as well as the importance of the library and librarians in sensitizing the community to the receptivity of memorialistic contents.