Gamified community processes. A strategy for promoting healthy lifestyles

Abstract

Since 2019, the Universidad Santo Tomás has been developing projects in two marginalized areas of Bogotá, with the aim of creating an installed capacity to respond to the training needs of community actors and guarantee the rights to recreation and health. Among the pedagogical actions implemented by the university, gamification has become a fundamental strategy to promote recreation and healthy lifestyles among the more than 400 children, adolescents, community mothers and caregivers of the institution's Social Projection Centers affected by the projects. This was made possible in part by the participatory action research approach, which takes into account the interests and needs of these populations. One of the results is the creation of a toolbox on physical culture, sport and recreation, which, with a practical language aimed at the community, facilitates the approach to the territories and breaks the communication barrier. Formative processes such as these are a space where students from the university's faculties of sport and recreation carry out their academic internships, while at the same time guaranteeing innovation and the promotion of healthy living through recreation.