The program University welcomed students for the first semester of 13 this Monday morning (2017). The ceremony filled the Unicamp convention center with new and old students and was attended by the rector José Tadeu Jorge, the general coordinator of the University , Alvaro Penteado Crósta, the pro-rector of university development, Leonardo Palermo Jr, the councilor and president of the elderly committee of the Municipality of Campinas, Rubens Gas, in addition to the executive coordinator of UniversIDADE, Alice Helena de Danielli.
Created in 2015, the Program aims to offer free extension activities to people over 50 years of age, aiming to improve quality of life and mental and physical health. “The objective of the program is to bring the community into the university in order to welcome these people. It’s about promoting stimulation, health and quality of life. This social development that happens here has changed people’s lives a lot”, said Alice Helena Danielli. “I can say that in these three years we have had full support from the Unicamp rectory for the construction of this project”, she emphasized.
The rector, in turn, highlighted the importance of the program for the University and society as a whole. “It emblematically characterizes the University’s relationship with the entire Brazilian society.” Tadeu Jorge praised the program as a space for teaching, exchange and coexistence that communicates with each one of us. “Unicamp gained a lot from the existence of UniversIDADE”.
Another point highlighted by the dean was the involvement of Unicamp's internal community in the project. According to him, never in the history of the University has there been an activity in which people have become so massively involved voluntarily. This semester, there will be 127 activities offered to more than 800 students.
Among these volunteers are Father Norberto Tortorelo Bonfim and Pastor João Sílvio Rocha, chaplains at the Hospital de Clinicas da Unicamp (HC), who have been offering the course since the beginning of the program. Spirituality and religion, within the mental and physical health block. “In the workshop, we clarify what spirituality is and how it can help the quality of life in old age, giving meaning to the practice of spiritual and ethical values, which transcend any religion”, explains Father Norberto. Due to the great demand for questions raised by students, the course's workload increased with each edition. This semester, there will be five meetings, lasting two hours each, which will seek to offer a conceptual vision of the major religious blocks, in addition to addressing delicate topics raised by students such as loneliness and the end of life.
José Claudio Mendes, who has also been at UniversIDADE since the first edition, but as a student, summarizes: “I came, signed up, took the course and I don't want to leave anymore”. Mendes participated in several workshops including memory, chemistry, physics, nutrition and functional activity. Among the courses that marked him the most, he mentions Passion, love and sex at the best age e A closer look at the remedies. According to him, it was at a workshop at HC that he learned about the Statute of the Elderly, which ended up taking him to the Municipal Council for the Elderly, where he was elected councilor and advocates for the group's rights. “I want to bring more colleagues so that we can really change the mentality of the politicians who manage the municipality and reach the elderly with everything that is postulated in the statute”, he says.
The ceremony also featured a testimony from Nadir Aparecida Gomes Camacho, an employee of the Postgraduate Program at the Faculty of Education, who has just won the São Silvestre Race in the category between 60 and 64 years old. With an inspiring statement, the educator and athlete spoke of the importance of perseverance and harmony between body and mind.
Listen to the interview about the UniversIDADE Program given by Alice Helena Danielli to Rádio Senado:
