Storytellers – workshops about sexuality with adolescents

Abstract

This work analyses a public health intervention based on storytellers’ workshops with 19 adolescents attended by a social and educative program in Porto Alegre city. The study objective was to problematize sexuality, starting from story reading and elaboration by the teenagers. The data analysis was based on Michel Foucault studies. The teenagers throughout the conversations and the stories constructions talked about the violent situations on daily life: the poverty, the hunger, the drugs, the street life, and the unequal treatment they receive at institution. They used repertoires that mixed traditional patterns related to sex/gender, translated in the desire for dating, getting married, having children and, at the same time, they used a vocabulary of slang and ironies related to forbidden aspects of sexuality. The teenagers were afraid to establish a commitment with the proposal, referring themselves as the ones who are not capable of learning. Story workshops can be helpful as tools in educational health practices, in order to work with people who present vulnerability issues, including adolescents.