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The COVID-19 pandemic brought the urgency in the search for innovative solutions in different areas of knowledge to mitigate the effects and impacts of the disease, whether on health, social or economic terms. Urban and socio-economic determinants of informalsettlement communities make COVID-19 challenges even harder to be overcome, requiring local and situated solutions that consider their livelihood diversity. This manuscript shows the results of an exploratory pilot study which addressed the potential of participatory design to contribute to mitigating COVID-19 effects and impacts, identifying the problems, adaptative strategies, challenges for and needs of Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte communities. It was drawn from triangulation of methods and analysis of multiple (primary and secondary) data sources. The needs of communities were raised through online roundtables with community members, representatives of NGOs, designers, architects and researchers. Analysis of the roundtables was conducted collaboratively by the researchers through online tools, including Affinity Mapping, and 5 Whys. The findings point out the needs of communities clustered in 6 major themes, five of which indicate potential areas in which participatory design can play a meaningful role and need to be further investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, most of the Brazilian population is living in cities, and slums are growing with poor living conditions, in a context of enormous social-economic inequality. One of the local challenges is the poor nutrition of its inhabitants, along with the high cost of healthier food. This paper presents the results of an urban gardening project, developed through the partnership of universities, communities and public institutions at the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. It represents university research and extension projects on building community gardens, aiming at the constitution of a social-economic innovative process to increase local social cohesion, popular protagonism and food sovereignty. Each garden that is part of the Community Gardening Project is facing particular challenges in relation to its social, environmental and economic sustainability, but the initiative is proving to be a significant alternative to humanize those spaces, systemically bringing together approaches as Systemic Design, Agroecology and Food Sovereignty and Solidarity Economy, Integral Endeavours and developing cooperative and innovative actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]