Vivendo a terceira idade em Vitória da Conquista : um estudo de caso acerca do impacto do programa da terceira idade da prefeitura municipal de Vitória da Conquista

Abstract

This research is about a case study assigned with old people from Vitória da Conquista, Bahia. These people participate in a program called Vivendo a Terceira Idade. This program belongs to Social Development Secretary from the Prefeitura Municipal de Vitória da Conquista and it was founded in 1997. Until the observation period which was occurred on the first semester in 2006, there were about four hundred old people participating in the program. The great part of these people came from popular districts and they were poor people. In living together groups, people participate by educative and leisure activities. These groups are situated in eight districts from the city and their meetings happen in their own districts or in the program space. The mainly objective by this research is understand what is the program influence in old people who participate. To make this work, the researcher chose inactive old people, who receive some periodic money from social security politics, like: retirement, pension, etc. This study was based in Pierre Bourdieu Sociology and our observation was about the familiar experiences from the old people in the program activities. Our discussion started from the facts raised by the participating observation, by the interviews, by the questionnaires and by the appreciation of the program documents. Besides, it was based in five analysis categories: gender, work, family, citizenship and resignifying. Through the adopted methodology, according to the theoretical referential, we tried to show how old people who participate in an Elderly program resignify their life references about identity and acquired social behavior. In general, this analysis suggest that old people pass to true reviewing life processes starting from the question about the values and the building of new priorities to drive their lives. This new reality redesigns the identities and provides changes in the center of the old people relationships with their families and with the society.