PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PROGRAM FOR THE ELDERLY: COMMUNITY AND UNIVERSITY INTEGRATION

Abstract

Public universities are built aiming at developing teaching, research and extension activities. The activities of extension besides assisting the formation of the students, they also return to the community the production developed inside the university, in by changing the reality in a positive way. The physical activity is a subject in prominence on the media, especially on its important benefits for the elderly, which happens to be the fastest growing age group. The Department of Physical Education, Institute of Biosciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP) at Rio Claro, has been developing an expressive number of extension projects that benefits both the external and internal community. The Program of Physical Activity for the Third Age (PROFIT) is part of these projects and it offers structured physical activity designed for 50-and-plus year-old people. Professors and both undergraduate and graduate students supervise such program. Thus, the aims of this study were to analyze: a) the history of the PROFIT; b) the operational way that the project has been running; c) the evolution of the program, in relation to the number of students who have volunteered to help out and learn, since the its beginning in 1989 up to 2006. The data collection was carried out by searching on the data bank of the project (annual reports). The result of the search shows: a) a growth throughout the years both in the number of trainees (volunteer students) and older people who have been participating; b) such increases seem to demonstrate an efficient operational way to run the project. In conclusion, PROFIT seems to play an important function both for the internal and external community, which helps UNESP to fulfill its duty of transforming the reality in a positive way.