Gastronomia social: qualificação profissional, terapia e promoção do empreendedorismo feminino

Abstract

The present work is a scientific article that presents an experience report of the chocolate making course offered in the project “Gastronomy and Therapy: New ways to generate income and self-esteem” in partnership with the Social Gastronomy Program in Jardim da Gente, develop in the city of Fortaleza. The target audience of the Project comes from families marked by unemployment, low education and lack of professional training, practically devoid of income. They live in the Grande Bom Jardim region, one of the areas with the lowest index/HDI in this capital, covering the communities of Bom Jardim, Santa Cecília, Santo Amaro, Planalto Granja Lisboa, Siqueira, Canindezinho, Parque São José, Morocco, Tatumundé, Jardim Jatobá, among others. Data were collected in May 2023, 4 months after completing the chocolate making course. An online interview was conducted using guiding questions as a tool in order to collect data on socio-educational and economic issues (mainly age, education and income). Such questions were subjective and aimed to discover the effects that womem experienced or acquired throughout the course. The activities of the chocolate making course encouraged integration between students, teachers and therapists, which indicates that gastronomy can be used as a therapeutic method and in the promotion of female entrepreneurship, according to the data collected. In addition, we found that the format of the course experienced, which combined cooking and femae entrepreneurship, and the Systemic Community Approach (CSA) was applied, being found to be feasible, can and should be used in other types of gastronomy courses, provided that the results are comparable.