ABSTRACT

The proposed work aims to describe the process of development and consolidation of a project, which includes members of the Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Extension and Research, carried out by professors, researchers and students of the Department of Arts & Design of PUC-Rio – DAD, with financial sponsorship from PUC-Rio and with teachers support of   other departments of the institution, as well as publishers and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation - EMBRAPA.

The collective[1] entitled TAMO JUNTO - ROCINHA – TMJ-Rocinha started in 2014, and a partnership was established with the DAD team from PUC-Rio at the time of the pandemic.

The Rocinha is the second largest slum in Latin America and its geographic location is awfully close to the PUC-Rio campus. One of the teachers participating in the project is a community leader and resident of Rocinha. With the contingency required because of COVID19, many people were left without income and experiencing needs. In this sense, the Collective TMJ-Rocinha started collecting donations for the purchase of basic baskets with the support of teachers, thus starting the partnership between TMJ-Rocinha and PUC-Rio.

The first objective of the partnership was to create a network that was able to raise funds for the purchase of basic food baskets in the establishments of the community itself, encouraging and valuing local commerce. In a second moment, it was noticed the lack of food that could help in strengthening the immunity of the residents, since the baskets were constituted only with non-perishable food. Therefore, fruits and vegetables were added to the baskets.

The team started the work by identifying the need to develop a visual identity for TMJ-Rocinha to enhance the collective financing campaign for the actions. The identity was created by a team of seven students from the Department of Arts & Design - DAD of PUC-Rio with the supervision of a DAD Teacher. With the visual identity defined, the group started to manage the collective social networks, creating strategic content, together with the residents of Rocinha, for visibility of the actions, thus notably increasing donations. With the support of the public notice of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities IEAHu of the Centre for Theology and Human Sciences – CTCH of PUC-Rio, the team identified gaps for the development and sustainability of the TMJ-Rocinha Collective, such as the development of playful / educational material for children and the legalization of the TMJ-Rocinha Collective's status, which started in 2014, but still it is not legal. Legalizing it is also one of the objectives of the project.

When we identify the problem in the context of Rocinha children's access to school content, the difficulties of maintaining isolation in the face of local precariousness and the lack of communication materials with local language, especially with regard to the prevention of COVID-19, our team set out to develop a playful and educational set for children. It is part of the kit, the development of an almanac with different activities to entertain the children, make them aware of the importance of staying at home and the need to maintain the necessary hygiene habits and a healthy diet. Seeds, soil, and a manual on how children should plant and record, through drawing, the development of their plant was added to the kit.

Another suggested activity is making "dolls" using packaging, fabrics, and other reusable materials. The set includes molds for making “dolls” and “dedotes”[2] to encourage children to seek possibilities for making toys from the reuse of materials, which would be discarded, thus evidencing a historic problem in Rocinha: the waste disposal. One of the starting points for the almanac elaboration is the “Bonde da Gambiarra”[3], which encourages children to think about the project through the Design methodology to develop objects from available materials, improvisation and creativity. The material also includes content on the community's memory, with an emphasis on the visibility of local cultural initiatives. In addition to a memory game that, playfully, aims to show the importance of issues related to hygiene practices in this pandemic era.

By reframing this raw material (garbage), in addition to an answer as to its potential in making dolls and educational objects, we are inserting PET and other disposable plastics as a communication tool. The plastic bottles suits as ready-to-use bases, the great variety of shapes available on the market makes it possible for a very large repertoire of characters.

Currently, the almanac is in the final stages and the sets are in the final stages of preparation. When thinking about the development process, we realize that, intuitively or not, we use the project methodology of Design. The activities were taking place and each one of those involved contributed with their knowledge, respecting the knowledge, memory, and local culture of the Rocinha slum.

The project development process was "going on" and after the development phase, it is possible to reflect about the process, identifying that the work of everyone involved happened organically in the search for solutions, using the Social Design approach.

The methodology also fits into the methodology of Collaborative Design and, in a way, with regard to Strategic Design, because even in an "intuitive" way the double diamond technique was applied.

We do not have the results yet, as the kit will only be delivered in December 2020, we will only be able to obtain the results after delivery. 250 kits will be delivered and we will follow the children's interaction through social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.

Keywords

Social Design, Collaborative Design, Strategic Design, reuse, pandemic, awareness.

References

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[1] Group of people who share the same ideal, fight in an organized way for the same cause, defending the collective rights and interests. There is no vertical hierarchy, all decisions are made democratically and the participation of members of a collective takes place in a horizontal way, that is, everyone participates in decisions. In the case of TMJ-Rocinha, the main purpose is the fight for public policies.

[2] Small puppet, usually made of cloth, that fits on the finger used to tell children's stories.

[3] An initiative that adopts the Design methodology based on the concept of “gambiarra” as a technological education approach for elementary education. We consider that in Brazil, the concept of “gambiarra” refers to "improvisation", which corresponds to the term "(unscrew) desenrascanço", used in Portugal.