Desarrollo de una estrategia participativa de capacitación sobre inocuidad alimentaria para vendedores ambulantes en la ciudad de Cuenca

Abstract

Street food vending, predominantly in developing countries, has been linked to inadequate hygiene and handling practices that contribute to the risk of contamination by pathogens and foodborne diseases. In the local context, street vending represents an accessible economic alternative to unemployment. This activity faces limitations such as the lack of basic infrastructure and knowledge of good food safety practices. In this degree project, the design and implementation of a participatory training strategy on food safety for street vendors in the city of Cuenca is proposed. The proposed strategy included an audiovisual component based on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), previously developed by the Department of Biosciences, University of Cuenca, and the Consortium for Food Safety in Ecuador. In addition, discussion spaces were included to share experiences and put the theoretical content into practice. This work is considered as a training pilot, which will allow to explore the acceptance of this training strategy and, in the future, to propose multidisciplinary solutions to the problem of lack of food safety in the population of street vendors for their social and economic welfare.