Brazilian Campus Ambassador Program as an educational strategy on Planetary Health

Abstract

The Brazilian Campus Ambassadors Program (BCAP) of Planetary Health Brazil has the mission of formally recognizing the leaders of the Next Generation in Planetary Health (PH). Throughout the ten months of the program, under the mentoring of professors and researchers, the ambassadors build their PH network and develop organizational and leadership skills. Along the BCAP, the ambassadors acquire skills and tools to take a leading role in their place of action, educate their community, and facilitate collaboration among the existing fields and initiatives on human health and climate change. The target public are undergraduate and graduate students, who acted as multipliers to involve the academic community and the civil society. This way, the BCAP, which is currently in its second edition, works as a strategy to spread the concept of PH in the Brazilian academic environment, giving it a greater capillarity to be inserted in the different areas of education. In 2021, the first edition of the program, we had 249 ambassadors, accompanied by 33 mentors, and 90 of them managed to finish the activities. For 2022, we opted for a smaller intake: 87 ambassadors, accompanied by 23 mentors - to provide more focused mentoring. The result of the 2021 edition was the union of ambassadors from different areas of knowledge in the realization of lectures, online events and lives, workshops, and active participation in the organization and Poster Sessions of PHAM 2021. They learned the value of working together and communicating in an accessible language. At the same time, they learned that we all have our role in PH, broadening their initial vision on the theme. It is worth highlighting the quantity and quality of the ambassadors' activities, even with the limitations imposed COVID-19 pandemic, even generating the insertion of SP content in undergraduate and graduate courses at Brazilian universities.