Design de personagem para a promoção da saúde do trabalhador: um estudo voltado às quebradeiras de coco babaçu do estado do Maranhão

New strategies on Workers’ Health need to be developed to accelerate the process of preventing work- related diseases. To this end, it is imperative to promote interventions on productive processes harmful both to health and to the environment, informing workers about individual and collective protection measures, so as to enable them to use prevention tools. In this respect, the need to promote the development of an effective channel of communication with babassu nutcrackers in the State of Maranhao was identified, a fact that motivated the accomplishment of the present study. To meet this need, Design Thinking was chosen as a method in the development of characters with the purpose of transmitting essential technical-scientific information for health promotion and for the prevention of injuries caused by the characteristically arduous and repetitive work done by this class of workers. And so, inspired by the cordel literature and clay figures, so common to Brazilian folk art, the general argument and concept art of the characters Zefa Quebra Coco and her daughter Moca were created. The idea is to use the characters in Brazilian cordeis, booklets, advertising campaigns and infographics, as well as turn them into cloth dolls to help show nutcrackers, postures in the execution of work that are detrimental to health, and those that help to preserve it.