[A play technique as a new approach to health education]

This paper presents the premisses and results reached in the first phase of a community project of the College of Health Sciences of the University of Brasilia, whose purpose is to develop a new approach to health education based on the use of instruments and teaching techniques involving play. For this phase the objectives were: to set up a play room in the satellite city of Paranoá-Federal District; to make the teachers aware of the importance of play in the development of children; to improve their role in this kind of work with children; to develop new maintenance of the play center. The authors relate their experiences in the project in the period of a year and a half, pointing out certain factors which facilitated and inhibited the results, as well as explaining how they propose to use this space to develop a new approach to health education with a focus in health promotion.