Indicadores de qualidade de vida instrumento para o monitoramento participativo da qualidade de vida de comunidades costeiras tradicionais:o caso da Prainha do Canto Verde,Beberibe/CE

Abstract

The growing environmental crisis of the last decades has been impelling the elaboration of new proposals for the development of the society, and has been generating the need to establish new forms of monitoring the development process. Thus, the interest for the creation of sustainability indicators has been growing. When speaking about human development, these indicators are also called Quality of Life Indicators. The choice and the use of indicators, through participative arrangements, besides being an important administration tool, even turns out to be an instrument for environmental education. Due to the principles of subsidiarity and verification of the reality, the community dimension has been evoked as a fundamental link for environmental management. The National Plan of Coastal Management has not arrived at this level of social organisation yet, a fact that puts in danger the efficiency of Coastal Management in Brazil. Only in the sea border of the state of Ceará dwell more than a 100 traditional communities, whose way of life tends to maintain the harmony of the relationship between Society&Nature on the coast. Believing in the potential of Participative Monitoring of the Quality of Life of the Community, as a tool to involve traditional communities into the coastal management process, we intended to study a participative methodology for choosing Quality of Life Indicators and Indexes. Hence, we founded this research on principles of Action-research, that learning by doing, developing together with the community of Prainha do Canto Verde, Beberibe/CE, a group of Indicators and Indexes of Quality of Life. Assuming the population's needs as focus and the family as unit of analysis, all indicators were standardised into percentages, including concrete situations, attitudes and practices, perceptions and/or degree of satisfaction of the needs. The whole process involves 8 steps, from the formation of a study group to the elaboration of the Indexes, one for each need. For collecting information we used a survey method, that were produced and used with the participation of 6 young people of the community. The results demonstrate nutrition and organisation needs as the most lacking ones, and health and energy as the most satisfactory. The indicators should be shared with all the interested community groups, through the most accessible forms. The methodology proposed revealed to be satisfactory with respect to the development of a Participative Monitoring of Quality of Life, which, besides being a tool for local administration and environmental education, can be used in Sustainable Community Certification Programs, and constitutes an important incentive for a Sustainable Community Development process.